NEW DELHI  Orders from the palace sent the people of Bhutan rushing to the polls for their first national elections on Monday, as the once reclusive Land of the Thunder Dragon further opened its doors and joined the world’s democracies.

While turnout was heavier than in many countries more experienced with voting  nearly 80 percent by the time polls closed at 5 p.m.  the results left some analysts wondering how democracy would actually function.

Of the 47 seats in Parliament, according to provisional results from the Election Commission of Bhutan, 44 went to Druk Phuensum Tshogpa, whose name can be translated as the Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party. The rival People’s Democratic Party (English is widely spoken among the Bhutanese elite), the only other party running, lost resoundingly. Its leader, Sangay Ngedup, lost his own constituency.

There were no striking differences between the platforms of the two parties, making the vastly uneven results hard to explain. “We are all caught completely off balance at this moment,” Karma Ura, director of the Center for Bhutan Studies, a government-financed organization, said by telephone from Thimphu, the capital. “Functioning of democracy requires a good opposition. I don’t know what will happen now. It’s not an ideal situation.”