Dalai Lama to convey his retirement decision to Tibetan Parliament today

Claiming that this was not an appropriate time for the Dalai Lama to retire,the Speaker said,¿We still need his leadership because Tibetans are facing destruction of culture,heritage,language,environment — both inside and outside Tibet.¿

The Dalai Lama had on Thursday announced his decision to retire as the political head of the Tibetan government-in-exile and to hand over his “formal authority” to a “freely-elected” leader. However,the Parliament-in-Exile is unlikely to accept his decision as lawmakers and officials feel that without the Dalai Lama the government-in-exile would lack legitimacy. Prime Minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile Samdhong Rinpoche said the Parliament has to look for “innovative” solutions to satisfy the aspirations of the exiled Tibetans as well as the Dalai Lama. He added that the Dalai Lama is unlikely to change his decision.

Rinpoche,a close aide of the Dalai Lama,said the spiritual leader wanted to completely retire from politics as he feels that “political leadership should not be confined to one person and individual”.

His close aides said the Dalai Lama wanted to hand over all his political powers to the newly-elected leader of the Tibetan government-in-exile to prepare the community to carry on the struggle without him. They said the Dalai Lama has been contemplating retiring from active politics for a long time and has been discussing the issue with his close aides,who are opposed to his decision. The aides said that the Dalai Lama will ask the Parliament-in-Exile to make amendments to the Charter of Tibetans-in-Exile,reflecting his decision to hand over “formal authority”.

His decision comes ahead of March 20 when Tibetans will vote for the next PM. The process may see for the first time a layman,rather than a monk,assume the role. Lobsang Sangay,42,a Harvard fellow,is the leading candidate for the post. Other candidates are Tenzin Namgyal ‘Tethong’ and Tashi Wangdi.

Instituted in 1960,the Tibetan Parliament-in-exile is the highest legislative organ of the community. The creation of this elected body has been one of the major changes that the Dalai Lama had brought about in his efforts to introduce a democratic administrative system.