འབྲུག་ « ƆBRUG »
— Also: འབྲུག་ཡུལ་ « Ɔbrug Jul ».
— Officially: འབྲུག་རྒྱལ་ཁབ་ « Ɔbrug Rgjal K‛ab ».
— English: Bhutan.
— Seat of government: ཐིམ་ཕུ་ « T‛im P‛u ».
— Status: Not democratic.
— Structure: The གི་རྒྱལ་ཡོངས་ཚོགས་འདུ་ « Gi Rgjal Loŋs S‛ogs Ɔdu » is elected by geographical constituency, and chooses the prime minister. The གི་རྒྱལ་ཡོངས་ཚོགས་སྡེ་ « Gi Rgjal Loŋs S‛ogs Sde » is elected by རྫོང་ཁག་ « rzoŋ k‛ag », or appointed by the king. The king (འབྲུག་རྒྱལ་པོ « Ɔbrug Rgjal Po ») is hereditary.
— Chief governing party: མི་སེར་དམངས་གཙོའི་ཚོགས་པ། « Mi Ser Dmaŋs Gsoɔi S‛ogs Pa ».
— Heads of government: ཚེ་རིང་སྟོབས་རྒྱས། « S‛e Riŋ Stobs Rgjas », prime minister; འཇིགས་མེད་གེ་སར་རྣམ་རྒྱལ་དབང་ཕྱུག་ « Ɔjigs Med Ge Sar Rnam Rgjal Dbaŋ P‛jug », king.
— Chief opposition party: འབྲུག་ཕུན་སུམ་ཚོགས་པ « Ɔbrug P‛un Sum S‛ogs Pa ».
— Assessment: A reigning monarchy was installed by the British Empire in 1907. A constitution for a parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarchy has been partially implemented. The previous monarch, འཇིགས་མེད་སེང་གེ་དབང་ཕྱུག་ « Ɔjigs Med Seŋ Ge Dbaŋ P‛jug » (1972-2006), had stated that he would abdicate in favor of his son, the present monarch, when a democratic government was elected, but abdicated sooner. Parliamentary elections were held in 2008; the popular result was split two to one in favor of the འབྲུག་ཕུན་སུམ་ཚོགས་པ « Ɔbrug P‛un Sum S‛ogs Pa », but it won nearly all of the seats, and འཇིགས་མེད་འོད་ཟེར་འཕྲིན་ལས « Ɔjigs Med Ɔod Zer Ɔp‛rin Las » (1998-9, 2003-4, 2008-13) again became prime minister. New elections were held in 2013, with the democratic opposition winning a majority.
— FH: 4-5, partly free (not democratic). Econ: 4.30 (109), hybrid.
— Updated: 2015 March 22.
 

O.T. FORD