An actor by passion, Sonam Maekay Penjor, from Thimphu Thromde will contest in the up coming National Council (NC) elections.

With experience of 10 years in various fields including media, construction, tourism and the film industry, the 34-year-old says it is his desire to serve the people of Thimphu and the country by becoming a member of NC.

Sonam Maekay Penjor is the Executive Director of Yarkay Group Pvt. Ltd.

He holds an MBA in Hotel and Tourism Management from Switzerland and a BBA in Marketing and Human Resource from Canada.

Despite coming from a business background, he says he is interested to contribute to nation building as a law maker. “I believe in building Bhutan together,” he said.

Although he received offers from some political parties in earlier elections, Sonam Maekay Penjor said that he preferred to contest for NC. He said that although he was interested before also, he did not contest realizing that he needed more experience to become a member of NC.

“I wanted to gain some experience before joining the house of review, which is also often referred to as the house of senior members,” he said.

The candidate said that His Majesty The King’s appreciation of the role of NC during the recently concluded parliament session further inspired him.

If elected, he said that he would promote the core values of His Majesty The King and the aspirations of the people of Bhutan. “We have more candidates today than in the past elections. I’m happy that this will give more choices to the people,” he said.

About 150 aspiring candidates have declared their interest to contest the upcoming NC elections, according to the Election Commission of Bhutan.

Sonam Maekay Penjor has acted in a number of Bhutanese films including Baeyul and Crossroads, and Sacho Gami Ga, the first Bhutanese film to be shot in Europe.

He said he is passionate about acting and films and that he is professionally trained from the William Esper Studio in New York, USA. He is also a producer and director.

“Making films is my passion. Films have a large audience and through them we can reach out to a large number of people with good themes,” he said.

Talking about his leadership traits, he said he has served as a leader of an association of international students in Canada. He also said that he was involved in initiating Project Bhutan, a platform for grooming youth in fashion.

As more candidates declare their intent to run for NC, Sonam Maekay Penjor said it is good that the people of Thimphu have more candidates to choose from.

MB Subba

Advertisement