EC proposes Nov 14 election date

KATHMANDU, JUN 07 -

The Election Commission (EC) has recommended the Khil Raj Regmi-led government to announce November 14 as the date for holding new Constituent Assembly (CA) elections.

The EC has told the government that the polls, if held after November 14, may not be possible in around 16 districts of the mountain region.

According to EC officials, records of the past 30 years show that the mountain areas normally witness snowfall after November 25.

“We should not go beyond that (third week of November). November 14 is the appropriate date,” Chief Election Commissioner Neel Kantha Uprety told the Post, adding, “After the third week of November, the mountain region usually witnesses rainfall and snowfall.” The CEC said the election body will have to hold re-polling in the mountain districts if the recommended date is missed.

Informed sources at the EC and the government said a date before November 22 will be fixed ‘at any cost.’

Government Spokesperson Madhav Poudel said the government will announce the date once its homework on the pending electoral ordinance and the formation of a Constituency Delimitation Commi-ssion is complete.

“We are also working hard to declare a date for November. It will be easier for us if the major political parties soon reach agreement on the disputed provisions in the poll ordinance,” said Poudel.

The Regmi government has also been requested to promulgate the long pending ordinance to amend the Constituent Assembly Member Act and arrange logistics, including Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), without further delay. Fearing that the plan to hold the elections in November may be hit in the absence of a voter roll, the EC has fixed July 15 as the cut-off date for updating the list.

A meeting of the EC on Thursday decided to register citizens who attain the age of 18 on July 15 as eligible voters. According to EC officials, the ongoing voter roll update campaign will also formally end on this date.

Currently, the EC is busy verifying applications filed by 139 parties for registration. Poll-opposing parties, including the Mohan Baidya-led CPN-Maoist, have not applied for registration.

The EC has been inviting tenders for logistics and EVMs, raising funds from donors and arranging voter roll printing machines, while it is also planning to set up a ‘joint security operation centre’ to control election-related violence and analyse the security situation across the country.

The centre, proposed to be set up on the EC premises, will comprise senior officials from the four security wings—Nepal Army, Armed Police Force, Nepal Police and National Investigation Department—and Joint-secretaries from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) and the EC.

The MoHA, which has been assigned to formulate a security-related policy, is finalising the document in a couple of days, according to MoHA spokesperson Shankar Koirala.

The EC’s date recommendation comes at a time when parties are at loggerheads over certain provisions concerning the electoral law. They are divided on the one percent threshold provision, which states that parties failing to secure one percent of the total votes under the First-Past-the-Post system will be ineligible for seats under the proportional representation electoral system.

The UCPN (Maoist) and Madhes-based parties have been opposing the EC-formulated provisions like the threshold, a bar on convicts from contesting the elections before six years of the completion of their sentences, and the need to disclose property details of candidates. The Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML are, however, supporting the EC on these issues.'

Source: The Kathmandu Post