Bhutan

The Kingdom of Bhutan, for over a hundred years an absolute monarchy under the Wangchuk Dynasty, held its first elections.

"All things," Lord Buddha reminds us, "are ephemeral." The two Buddhist autocrats who saw their power eroded this week in South Asia might have kept this advice in mind. From his Dharmasala lair, His Holiness the Dalai Lama lamented helplessly as the violent protests in Lhasa -- and the crackdown by Beijing -- proceeded apace, not obviously affected by his pleas for calm. And Jigme Khesar Namgyel, son of the Scourge of Thimpu, watched his subjects vote for a national assembly for the first time, in a ballot he himself decreed, but that still diminishes his authority. MORE