For
any democratic regime, consultation and inclusion of people’s views are
considered as the yardstick to measure its representativeness and pluralism. So
it is for Bhutan. In spite of growing institutions and public spaces in our
fledgling democracy, consultations in legislation and policy formulation seem minimal.
Very recently, the Minister for Economic Affairs attended WTO Conference in
Bali, Indonesia. Attempts to consult people were made by sharing post in social
media to gather views on Bhutan’s possible membership to the WTO whereby urban
literate got to express their stand. But what about those chunk of rural
illiterate and the future of small cottage industries and many more?
If
Bhutan is to join WTO, all stakeholders’ views need to be taken like that of
ongoing presentation of Right to Information (RTI) Bill. The recent panel
discussion on possible WTO accession in Broadcast Media (BBS) is good start for
consultation and gathering views.
Talking
to the people by the Members of Parliament during their constituency visits
about the rules they have to abide by if Bhutan joins the WTO will enable the
decision makers get people’s opinions even though they, rural illiterate may
not know what WTO really is. With Bhutan nearing LDC graduation, WTO accession
needs to ponder upon as Randall Krantz in his article ‘LDC Graduation and WTO
Enrollment’, in Kuensel dated 14th December 2013 mentioned, “WTO is
a one way street – it is not possible to test the waters and decide to go
back”. Decision either FOR or AGAINST need to be well calculated!
