ABSTRACT
The Fourth King commanded ECB to conduct practice elections for all the people in the country before 2008. Hence, in 2007, ECB organized two rounds of mock elections by creating four dummy parties: Druk Blue Party, Druk Green Party, Druk Red Party and Druk Yellow Party. I show how voters, for the first time, had to confront abstract institutions and actors like political parties and candidates. They also had to vote on voting machines whose sophistication was aggravated by new electoral and bureaucratic process. People were used to electing candidates who were known to them and lived among them. In making the unfamiliar familiar, they interpreted the colours of different dummy parties by associating them with meanings in everyday experiences. They associated the yellow with the monarchy. The yellow party won 46 out of 47 constituencies. People voted in the mock elections to affirm their faith in the monarchy. Observers pointed out that such electoral outcome was impossible in actual elections and argued that voters had not taken the mock elections seriously. However, in the actual elections held a year later, Druk Phuensum Tshogpa won 45 constituencies. The results have almost repeated. I analyse how and why this happened.
