(TibetanReview.net, May31’26) – With the voters in the Choejor polling station in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu getting no relief from the Tibetan Supreme Justice Commission (TSJC) regarding their plea for a stay of the ceremony, candidates elected to the 18th Tibetan Parliament in Exile(TPiE) took their oath of office this morning. The members then went to elect Ms Dolma Tsering Teykhang as the Speaker and Khnepo Sonam Tenphel as the Deputy Speaker.
The oath was administered by the U-Tsang Chithue Dawa Tsering, the Interim Speaker, being the senior-most member of the TPiE, who himself was administered his oath by the Chief Justice Commissioner Ms Yeshi Wangmo,
Ms Dolma Tsering is the first woman to become the Speaker of the TPiE. The U-Tsang Chithue was the Deputy Speaker in the previous TPiE, in which the Dotoe Chithue Khenpo Sonam Tenphel was the speaker. She won by 22 votes to Khenpo Sonam Tenphel’s 20. Three votes were declared invalid.
Khenpo Sonam Tenphel then went on to win election as the Deputy Speaker with 22 votes as against 20 votes polled by his rival candidate and Domey Chithue Karma Gelek, with again three votes being declared invalid.
It ha also been announced that the first session of the 18th TPiE will be held over Jun 2-3, 2026.
Earlier, on May 29, voters from the “Choejor” polling station in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu pleaded with the TSJC for a stay of the oath-taking ceremony, pending the resolution of the petition for the restoration of their voting right. The Tibetan Election Commission had previously ruled that there had been gross misconduct there by electoral officers during the preliminary poll held in February and ordered a repoll. However, it later decided that a repoll could not be held. But the Choejor Tibetans disagreed and petitioned the TSJC for relief.
While the hearing before the TSJC goes on, no stay appears to have been granted.
Sikyong (the CTA’s executive head) Penpa Tsering, who had taken his oath of office on May 27, attended the ceremony,
The seats in the TPiE are allocated 10 each to the three traditional provinces of Tibet, namely Dotoe, Domey and U-Tsang; two each to the four major Tibetan Buddhist schools, namely Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu, and Gelug, and Tibet’s pre-Buddhist religion Yungdrung Bon. The remaining five seats are allocated on the basis of the voters’ current residential status, with two each for the Americas and Europe plus South Africa constituencies, and one for the Australasia (excluding India, Nepal and Bhutan) constituency.
At 17, nearly 38% of the 45 members of the 18th Tibetan Parliament Exile (TPiE) are new. Half the number of members of the Dotoe and Domey constituencies are new, while from the U-Tsang constituency it is two. Besides, the Bonpo constituency is represented by one new member, the Americas by two new members, and Europe plus Africa as well as the Australasia constituencies by one new member each.