རྒྱལ་སྤྱིའི་མིག་ནང་གི་བཀའ་ཁྲི་མཁས་དབང་བློ་བཟང་སེང་གེ་མཆོག

A Harvard University academic has been elected prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile and will take on the political role previously played by the Dalai Lama. Lobsang Sangay won 55% of the votes cast by Tibetans around the world. He defeated two candidates for the role, Tenzin Tethong and Tashi Wangdi. Mr Sangay must now assume the political functions of the Dalai Lama, who said in March he wanted to devolve this responsibility to an elected official. The Dalai Lama will retain his role as Tibetan spiritual leader.’Middle way’ The elections were held in March and the result announced on Wednesday in Dharamsala, India, where the Tibetan government-in-exile is based. “The Election Commission of the Central Tibetan Administration of His Holiness the Dalai Lama has declared Dr Lobsang Sangay as the third kalon tripa,” Election Commissioner Jampal Thosang announced, using the Tibetan term for prime minister.

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The Tibet Divide

• China says Tibet was always part of its territory
• Tibet enjoyed long periods of autonomy before 20th Century
• In 1950, China launched a military assault
• Opposition to Chinese rule led to a bloody uprising in 1959
• Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fled to India
• Dalai Lama now advocates a “middle way” with Beijing, seeking autonomy but not independence.

Almost 83,400 Tibetan exiles were eligible to vote and more than 49,000 ballots were cast, he said.

Tenzin Tethong, a former representative of the Dalai Lama in the US, got 37.4% of the vote and Tashi Wangdi, a government-in-exile bureaucrat, received 6.4%. The 42-year-old winner is an Indian-born legal expert who has never lived in Tibet. His father fled Tibet in 1959, the same year as the Dalai Lama.He says he will move to Dharamsala to serve as prime minister and that he supports the Dalai Lama’s stance on ties with China.”What His Holiness stands for is the ‘Middle Way’, which is genuine autonomy within China or within the framework of the Chinese constitution,” he told the BBC earlier this month.

“If Tibetans are granted genuine autonomy then his Holiness the Dalai Lama said he is willing to accept Tibet as part of China.”In a victory statement on Wednesday, he said he took comfort in the fact that the handover was taking place while the Dalai Lama “is healthy and available to watch over us”.”I urge every Tibetan and friend of Tibet to join me in our common cause to alleviate the suffering of Tibetans in occupied Tibet and to return His Holiness to his rightful place,” he said.

Daunting task

An official told Reuters news agency that the Dalai Lama was “very happy” that people had taken “a very active part in the election process”. The 76-year-old monk announced in March that he wanted an elected official to assume some of his responsibilities, saying that such a move was in the best interests of the Tibetan people.Analysts say he aims to ensure that even if China’s government tries to select the next Dalai Lama, the Tibetans will have an elected leader they can look to who is outside China and beyond the Communist Party’s control.The BBC’s Mark Dummett says Lobsang Sangay has the daunting task of trying to keep the issue of Tibet alive while the man who embodies the struggle for Tibetan rights gradually steps back from the limelight. He has been elected head of a government which no country recognises and will face in China an opponent which has shown no sign of wanting to compromise, our correspondent adds.

28 April 2011 Last updated at 04:50 GMT

Exiled Tibetans welcome election of new prime minister

A Harvard academic has been elected prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile and will take on the political role formerly held by the Dalai Lama.

Lobsang Sangay won 55% of votes cast by Tibetans around the world, defeating two other candidates for the role, Tenzin Tethong and Tashi Wangdi.

BBC News website readers have been sharing their reaction to Mr Sangay’s victory.

Tenzin Rabga, 24, monk in Mundgod, India

Tenzin Rabga is a 24-year-old Tibetan monk in Mundgod, India

There are 5,000 monks here in the monastery in Mundgod and almost all of them voted in the election for Tibetan prime minister. I voted for Mr Sangay, so I am very happy about the result. Before the election no-one thought he would win, but we really needed a new-generation leader. Now it looks like we have our own version of Barack Obama. Now the Dalai Lama has given up his political responsibilities, I hope Mr Sangay takes on the new leadership role well. We can see he is an educated man. Now we want to see the man in action.

Tenzin Yangdak, 52, interpreter in Toronto, Canada

I was born in Tibet, but fled to India with my parents in 1959. In 2005, I moved to Canada as a refugee. I did vote in the election, but chose Tashi Wangdi, following his long and dedicated service and experience in Tibetan administration and struggle during those hard times. I thought Lobsang Sangay’s vision sounded good but I didn’t know enough about him to believe he had enough experience for the role.Since Mr Sangay won the election, I have been reading about him and believe this might not be a bad choice. Hopefully, it might even be a good outcome.I hope he can use his knowledge of international law to find a legal way to solve the Tibetan issue or use his connections with Chinese groups in the West to find ways of restarting dialogue with the Chinese leadership.I do support Mr Sangay now for his respectable victory and vision, and I believe the Tibetan people should all support him, too. I am going to put my faith and hope in him from now on.

Gelek Rapten, 27, travel agent in Kathmandu, Nepal

My family came to Kathmandu in 1959 after the revolt in Tibet, and I was born and raised here. My whole family voted in this election but then we heard the Nepalese government had stolen the ballot box and many precious votes from Nepal could not be counted.

Gelek Rapten says he believes Mr Sangay is the “perfect choice” The Tibetan election commission tried to rerun the vote, but again the government did not let it happen. I strongly condemn the Nepalese government for committing such an act under Chinese influence. I felt sad to be in Nepal and deprived of my basic rights.I believe he is the perfect choice for us. As a Harvard academic, we have full confidence in him.I hope Mr Sangay initiates talks with Tibetan supporters and the Chinese government.I wish him success for his entire tenure on behalf of all Tibetan people and look forward to seeing very successful government in exile under his leadership.

27 April 2011 Last updated at 23:15 GMT

Lobsang Sangay set to become Tibet’s political leader

By Adam Brookes BBC News, Massachusetts

Lobsang Sangay speaks to the BBC’s Adam Brookes about his hopes for an autonomous Tibet

Tibetans in exile have elected a new political leader – Lobsang Sangay, a 42-year-old academic with chiselled features who has spent the past 15 years at Harvard University. Following elections in March, Mr Sangay emerged as the surprise front-runner to become Kalon Tripa – a position often referred to as “prime minister” of a “Tibetan government-in-exile” headed by the Dalai Lama.But the new Kalon Tripa is expected to have to shoulder much of the authority previously borne by the Dalai Lama, who, at the age of 75, has announced he is to give up his political role.He will have to lead a global movement that campaigns for Tibetan rights and freedoms under Chinese rule. He’ll also manage the ramshackle “government-in-exile” that sits on a dusty hillside in northern India, in the town of Dharamsala.But his “government” has neither country nor international recognition. And the exiled Tibetans appear to have elected a man who has almost no experience of his homeland, and none of government.

Refugee family

Lobsang Sangay was born in 1968, in India. “India is my second home. I have never been to my first home,” he says, meaning Tibet, that vast tract of territory controlled by China since it sent in troops in 1950. Lobsang Sangay says he has cultivated contacts in China and is ready to lead

His father – a monk who saw his monastery in eastern Tibet destroyed by the Chinese military, according to Mr Sangay – fled Tibet in 1959, at the same time as the Dalai Lama. His mother left the same year, aged 17. The two met as refugees in India, and settled in a village called Lamahatta, near Darjeeling. Mr Sangay’s father ran a small business. The family kept chickens and cows, one of which was sold for 500 rupees to fund the young Lobsang’s school fees. “I owe a lot to a cow,” he says.At his boarding school in India for Tibetans – “lentil soup and rice every day for 10 years” – his teachers encouraged their students to serve the Tibetan movement.

Continue reading the main story

The Tibet Divide

• China says Tibet was always part of its territory
• Tibet enjoyed long periods of autonomy before the 20th Century
• In 1950, China launched a military assault
• Opposition to Chinese rule led to a bloody uprising in 1959
• Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fled to India
• Dalai Lama now advocates a “middle way” with Beijing, seeking autonomy but not independence

At Delhi University he joined the Tibetan Youth Congress, long the most radical of the exiled groups, and demanded Tibet’s independence on the streets of Delhi. A Fulbright scholarship took Mr Sangay to the US and to Harvard University, where he acquired a doctorate in law, and a family. The Tibetan exile boy now drives a silver four-wheel drive and wears aviator sunglasses, yet his English retains the accent, musical and sibilant, of Tibet. He has moderated his calls for independence, and now, he says, supports the Dalai Lama’s view that Tibet deserves “genuine autonomy” within the borders of China. When Mr Sangay takes up the role of Kalon Tripa in the summer, he will move to a two-bedroom apartment in Dharamsala, and a salary worth $400 (£242) a month.He will inherit an institution that looks less like a government and more like a large charity. The “Central Tibetan Administration” is the object of China’s relentless scorn. It has 1,100 officials to its name, and ministries of health, education and security. Last year, its expenditures, according to Mr Sangay, were about $20m dollars. It provided basic services to Tibetan exiles living in India, and lent focus and identity to a Tibetan diaspora of many tens of thousands in 30 countries.

‘Genuine autonomy’

Mr Sangay’s ability to run the bureaucracy of exile will surely be a test, but the far greater test will lie in leading the Tibetan exiles as the Dalai Lama ages. The 14th Dalai Lama has headed Tibetan Buddhism and the exiled Tibetans’ movement for half a century. His calls for “genuine autonomy” for Tibet have been ignored by the Chinese state. His successor, traditionally, would emerge through reincarnation, followed by a long, complex education over perhaps 20 years. Many Tibetans fear that on the Dalai Lama’s death, the Tibetan movement will wither for lack of a charismatic leader.

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As long as this repression continues, there will be resistance from Tibetan people”

Lobsang Sangay Tibetan prime ministerial candidate But in China, the Dalai Lama’s death is viewed as an opportunity. The Chinese government in 2007 passed a law – apparently without irony – asserting that only the atheist Chinese state can appoint the religious leaders of Tibet. China intends to ensure that the next Dalai Lama grows up inside Tibet, under the tutelage and control of the Communist Party, thus depriving the exile movement of its figurehead. The Dalai Lama is taking two steps which appear aimed at heading off that eventuality. He has announced that he may choose his own reincarnation, outside Tibet. And he is strengthening the institution of Kalon Tripa to take the movement forward.Mr Sangay says that he will support the Dalai Lama’s positions. “What His Holiness stands for is the ‘Middle Way’, which is genuine autonomy within China or within the framework of the Chinese constitution,” he says. “If Tibetans are granted genuine autonomy then his Holiness the Dalai Lama said he is willing to accept Tibet as part of China.”But when pressed on whether independence for Tibet could ever be feasible, he is cautious. “That is hypothetical so one cannot rule out or rule in.”

Tibetan dilemma

China frequently accuses the Dalai Lama of covertly supporting independence, and of fomenting unrest in Tibetan areas inside China – most recently the violent demonstrations of 2008. “We don’t encourage Tibetans inside Tibet [to demonstrate],” Mr Sangay responds, “We don’t encourage, but we understand their frustration and their sentiment because of the systemic discrimination and repression.”It’s a response that demonstrates the dilemma of the Tibetan exiled leadership. Non-violence is the Dalai Lama’s mantra, one that has brought him moral authority over the years in the eyes of his sympathisers. Yet non-violence has done nothing to change Tibet’s status under Chinese rule.And violent demonstrations in Tibetan cities – and the response of the Chinese state – never fail to refocus global attention on the Tibet question.

Mr Sangay, seen here on the campaign trail, advocates dialogue with China “As long as this repression continues, there will be resistance from Tibetan people,” says Mr Sangay. “That is why the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government are saying we ought to have a peaceful dialogue [with China], to resolve this issue as soon as possible.” But there have been nine rounds of dialogue between the Dalai Lama and China, and no tangible measures – a return visit to Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, by the Dalai Lama, for example – have emerged. It is not yet clear if the Dalai Lama will continue to head the dialogue with China, even after he steps down from his political role. It seems likely the new Kalon Tripa will take on greater influence in this area than his predecessor. Mr Sangay insists he is prepared, and has cultivated contacts in China carefully during his time at Harvard. Not everyone is convinced.”There is a huge amount waiting to be discovered here,” says Robert Barnett, of Columbia University. “The Tibetans are taking something of a gamble.”For centuries, Tibet and China have vied for control over the strategic heights of Asia. China now considers that battle over: Tibet is subdued and firmly within China’s borders. The Tibetan exiles wage a lonely struggle to prevent their cause fading from global consciousness. As the Dalai Lama ages, Mr Sangay may find himself at the forefront of a struggle to keep his legacy alive.

Taiwan DPP Congratulates Dr. Lobsang, the new PM of Tibet

Thursday, 28 April 2011 14:47 Keary Huan, The Tibet Post International

Taipei: – The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of Taiwan has sent a message of congratulations to Dr. Lobsang Sangay, the newly-elected Prime Minister of the Tibetan government in exile. The DPP said in the message that “the Democratic Progressive Party congratulates elected leader Dr. Lobsang Sangay, and it also pleased to see that the government leaders are democratically elected by the Tibetan people. The election result is not only a victory for the Tibetan government in exile, it is also a victory for all Tibetan people.”

“DPP is looking forward to have the Prime Minister Dr. Lobsang Sangay visiting Taiwan and to a more firmly based friendship.”

“His Holiness the Dalai Lama has announced his retirement in March. No longer being a political leader of Tibet government in exile, he will transit his power to the elected political leader, for establishing a better democratic system for Tibet and its people. We believe that it is an important milestone to build a democratic election system for Tibetan people,” the message reads.

During His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan government in exile leadership, he fully committed to fighting for the Tibetan people’s human rights and democratic freedom. His Holiness has visited Taiwan many times, and he has shown deep feelings for the people of Taiwan; when Taiwan suffered from the typhoon, His Holiness also visited the affected areas in Taiwan without hesitation.

“Prime Minister Dr. Lobsang Sangay is an expert on international human rights law, he won the election, which highlighting the aspirations of the Tibetan people’s eager for democracy and freedom,” said DPP. “The Democratic Progressive Party is urging the Chinese government to take the opportunity for a sincere dialogue with the Tibetan Prime Minister. We also demand the Chinese authorities’ attention to the Tibetan people’s determination for a genuine autonomy for Tibet. Freedom and basic human rights protection must be seriously implemented into Tibetan life.”

“As a new democratic nation, Taiwan is experiencing the hardships of the democratic process, but it also understanding the precious fruit of freedom; we support the Tibetan people who are working hard for freedom and democracy. The DPP appeals that the Ma Ying-jeou administration should actively communicate with China on human rights and democracy, show support for democracy in Tibet, and not be afraid of offending the Chinese authorities by deliberately avoiding the question of Tibet, resulting in damage to the international image of Taiwan.”