Rashtriya Prajatantra Party, which is contesting elections on the issue of constitutional monarchy and restoration of Hindu nation in Nepal, is also in the fray to register its presence. The dominance of independent candidates is also visible in many areas.
Image Credit source: AFP
Voting is going to be held across the country on November 20 to elect the federal parliament and regional parliamentarians in Nepal. All necessary preparations related to single phase polling have been completed. Before the elections, all the borders with India and China have been sealed. The security system has been made tight. All arrangements have been made for voting in remote areas also. This is the second general election after the new constitution was made in Nepal. The election campaign has been stopped two days before the polling to be held on 20 November. The main contest in this election is between the ruling coalition led by the Nepali Congress and the opposition coalition led by KP Sharma Oli.
However, this time the political parties demanding the restoration of constitutional monarchy in Nepal and the declaration of Hindu Rashtra are also in the center of discussion. The ruling coalition includes Sher Bahadur Deuba’s party Nepali Congress, Prachanda’s party Maoist Center, Madhav Nepal’s Unified Socialist Party, Mahant Thakur’s Loktantrik Samajwadi Party. Similarly, the opposition alliance includes Nepal Communist Party (UML) led by KP Oli, Janata Samajwadi Party led by Upendra Yadav. Rashtriya Prajatantra Party, which is contesting elections on the issue of constitutional monarchy and restoration of Hindu nation in Nepal, is also in the fray to register its presence. The dominance of independent candidates is also visible in many areas.
Voter will have to vote four times
Voting is already taking place for 165 direct seats in the House of Representatives of the Federal Parliament of Nepal. Along with this, voting will also be held for 110 proportional seats. For proportional seats, voters have to vote on the symbol of any one political party. Similarly, for electing the regional government, the voter will have to vote for his/her state assembly member directly and the political party for the proportional members. That is, each voter will have to vote four times simultaneously. First, a candidate for direct election to the Federal Parliament has to vote on his election symbol. After that, for the proportional member of the federal parliament, any one political party will exercise its vote on its election symbol. In the same way the voter will vote for the direct candidate and proportional member of his state assembly to the political party.
The proportional member is selected on the basis of the closed list of candidates submitted by the political parties to the Election Commission. In the federal parliament, only that party is recognized as a national party, whose at least one candidate is elected in direct election and gets three percent of the total votes polled in proportion. If a political party does not get three percent of the votes in the proportional vote, then not a single member of it is elected in the proportional system.
33 percent women in parliament is necessary
In order to make it mandatory for the presence of 33 percent women in the Federal Parliament and the Provincial Parliament of Nepal, the first women are selected from among the proportional members. Directly won and by selecting women in proportional, when 33 percent women MPs of that political party are elected, then only male MPs are selected for proportional member.
About 1.80 crore voters are going to exercise their franchise for the lower house of the Federal Parliament of Nepal as well as for the seven regional assemblies in a single day. It may take about two to three days for the results of the direct election to come. While the counting of proportional votes and the result may take a week to ten days.
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