The party since the elections has almost faded out with only countable number of its members renewing membership in the span of last two years. All district contacts have been erased and presence at the local level has reached almost to zero. The ruling party Druk Phuensum Tshogpa also has the similar fate.

The revival of the party is important at the advent of the next parliamentary elections in early 2013. If not a third party come to the surface by then, only two legally registered party of the country will have the same play ground like in 2008.

The experiences of the first elections have taught lessons to the PDP honchos. Not to let the history repeated, the new president of the party Tshering Tobgey has started his tour to district, beginning Samtse, the most heavily populated district.

Tobgey is currently in Samtse reorganizing the party and injecting interest to new enthusiasts to build up political career. The party leaders started revival campaign early, to ensure a good homework is done for a better result. Tobgey is traveling every villages talking to people.

Tobgay in his complaint said the CDG is unconstitutional and thus decided to take up the issue with the government.

He claimed the grant would increase monetary and political corruption and could be used for election campaigns in the next general elections. 

Approved in April by the council of ministers, the Finance Ministry is busy preparing mechanisms for the funds to start reaching the hands of lawmakers.

The decision was taken against the decision of the National Council in January, saying the distribution of money was faulty and unconstitutional. The issue has been forwarded to King.

Tobgay said development activities could be derailed when government gives priority to distributing money to MPs rather than the local bodies.

However, the government moved ahead with the CDG saying National Assembly has approved it. The ruling party DPT has 45 seats in the assembly out of 47.

Tshering Tobgay said the upcoming National Assembly must discuss the issue elaborately and the government has to prove its legality. 

Saying it is not legal, Tobgay also said CDG will overshadow the development budgets disbursed through district administration. 

He thought he geog needs development budget, it must reach there through proper channel and not through individual which would increase frauds.

Similarly, chairman of the National Council Namgay Penjore opposed the CDG saying it is unconstitutional. He further said NC would never lend support to the government on CDG matter. 

Though the parliament failed to finalize the proposal, the government had endorsed the CDG recently.

New PDP president Tshering Tobgay

The first gathering of the party leaders and cadres in Thimphu elected Tobgay to the top job after formally accepting the resignation from Sangay Ngedup. Ngedup while informing the gathering of his resignation accepted the failure of the party in the first ever democratic election was due to him.

I failed, therefore I resign, he said.

The gathering also elected Ritu Rai Chettri (Samtse), Yeshi Dorji (Lhuntse) and Damcho Dorji (Gasa) as the Vice Presidents and Sonam Jamtsho of Lhuentse as General Secretary of the party.

In his acceptance speech as the new party president, Tobgay said with Ngedup leaving the party, the PDP will have a difficult time ahead.

Ngedup signed off as party chief last year after continued pressure from banks and other companies to pay back the loans taken during the election campaigns. Indebted of over Nu 20 million, the party still has over Nu 4 million to pay debts. The convention also discussed the financial status of the party and ways to raise funds to pay back the debts.

The informal meeting set the date as March 22 but leaders speculated that Sangay Ngedup could also be reinstated to the same position. 

The leaders said at least two-third of the party members should accept the resignation submitted by Ngedup if party really wants a new president. If the gathering decided not to accept, Ngedup will continue to work as the PDP chief, who already has filed his resignation to Election Commission on December 23. 

This will be the first convention of the party and possibly the first of such gathering where members will have right to elect their leader democratically. The first-past-the-post electoral system gave a severe blow to PDP in first election in March shrinking it only with two MPs out of 47 in National Assembly.