Landmark election begins in Bhutan

Bhutan's landmark democraric election

Voting begins in the Himalayan nation of Bhutan in elections that will select the country's first democratic system to end the royal rule.

The polls are the culmination of an initiative by Bhutan's royal family to transform the remote nation of 670,000 people, which is wedged in the mountains between India and China, into a constitutional monarchy.

Voters are choosing 47 members of a new lower house, with just two parties -- the People's Democratic Party (PDP) and the Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT) or Bhutan United Party -- locked in a tight race for power.

The two parties have made similar promises to boost growth and develop roads and other infrastructure -- and to stick by the country's focus on "Gross National Happiness" -- making it a tough choice for many voters.

At a polling booth in the centre of Thimphu, a line of 200 people dressed in the traditional national robes queued before voting opened at 9:00am.

"This is the first time I'm voting," said Lhamchum, a 68-year-old housewife who had turned up with nine family members.

The landlocked country was never colonized and for centuries the Bhutanese relished their independence and isolation from the outside world, maintaining a barter economy and allowing few foreigners to visit.

AP/PA