EC announces new six-day window for voters to register

Wangdu Tsering Pesur, the Chief Election Commissioner and the additional commissioner Geshema Delek Wangmo.

DHARAMSALA, Nov 16: The Tibetan Election Commission today announced the reopening of the voter registration window from 23 – 28 December for the Sikyong(President) of the Tibetan people and Chitue (members of Parliament) to register.

“We are announcing a new window-period for registration from 23 to 28 December,” Wangdu Tsering Pesur, the Chief Election Commissioner(CEC) of the Central Tibetan Administration said.

The CEC said that the decision to provide a yet another 6 days window for Tibetans to register to vote was taken owing to the challenging circumstances that Wuhan, China originated COVID-19 has brought about and to ensure full participation for the general public and as per the recommendations it received from the majority of the local ECs at a recent workshop.

After conducting the exercise at 58 local Tibetan ECs across 26 countries, the EC announced that a total of 79,697 Tibetans have registered or the upcoming 2021 Tibetan General elections.

Of the total, 55,683 registered voters are from India and 24,014 from abroad. This marks a significant drop of 10,680 voters compared to the last election held in 2016.

The EC declared open the 2021 Elections of Sikyong and the members of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile on 5 August, began voter registration from 1 Sept. to 15 Oct. and later extended the registration till October 30.

The commission additionally said that the move in accordance with the provisions of Article 18 (3) (c) under the Election Commission regulations will also ensure that those who have since attained the age of 18 years will get to register as well.

The preliminary election for Sikyong and members of the 17th Tibetan Parliament will take place on 3 January 2021 and the final election on 11 April 2021.

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