The Dalai Lama will step down as the political leader of the Tibetan government in exile, he said in a prepared speech on Thursday. “As early as the 1960s, I have repeatedly stressed that Tibetans need a leader, elected freely by the Tibetan people, to whom I can devolve power,” he said. “Now, we have clearly reached the time to put this into effect.” Perhaps alluding to the wave of people’s revolutions across the Middle East, Tempa Tshering, a representative for the Dalai Lama in India, said, “He wants to make a change. He has always believed in democracy and He wasn’t elected as head of state.”
