Preparation for National Assembly election over, voting to take place tomorrow

Kathmandu / Feb 6: The Election Commission has completed all the preparations for the election to the member of National Assembly taking place in all the seven provinces of the country tomorrow.

All the preparations for the election have been completed in all the provinces and voting will take place from 10 am to 3 pm tomorrow, the Election Commission said.

The Constitution of Nepal has stipulated for a bicameral federal legislature comprising the House of Representatives and the National Assembly. Election to the member of the House of Representatives has been already held under two phases on November 26 and December 7, 2017.

The National Assembly (the Upper House) has 59 members. Out of them, 56 members are elected by the electoral college at the rate of eight members, including at least three women, one dalit and one person from among the disabled or minority communities, from each province. The President nominates three members including at least one woman to the National Assembly at the recommendation of the government.

The electoral college is made of total 2,056 voters including 1,506 mayors and deputy mayors of municipalities, and chairpersons and vice-chairpersons of the rural municipalities. The rest of the electorates are the 550 members of the Province Assembly of all the seven provinces.

According to the Election Commission, voting will take place at the Office of the Chief Returning Officer in six provinces. The office of the chief returning officer has been established at the places where the High Court of each province is located.

The polling stations have been set up at the public places near to the Office of the Chief Returning Officer in Biratnagar (Province 1), Patan, Lalitpur (Province 3), Pokhara (Province 4), Dang (Province 5), Surkhet (Province 6) and Doti (Province 7).

Arrangements have been made for having two voting booths at every polling station, Election Commission’s Information Officer Surya Prasad Aryal said.

According to him, the Province Assembly members will cast their votes at a separate booth while the local level officials at the next booth. There will be four separate ballot papers of green and red colours. The weightage of the Province Assembly members’ vote will be 48 while the same of the local level officials would be 18.

Meanwhile, all the members of the National Assembly from province-2 have been elected unopposed.

Experts to be used for vote counting

A five-member team from the Bureau of Statistics at the rate of three experts and two administrative assistants for each province have been deputed for counting the votes under the single-transferable electoral system, Aryal said.

The Election Commission has already given orientation training to the representatives of political parties who will be representing in the vote counting.

Election Commission Information Officer Aryal said that the commission planned to make public the entire election results by tomorrow if possible and by February 8 at the most. The Joint Secretaries have been deputed to all the provinces for monitoring the election.

All candidate of National Assembly election have already been elected unanimously in province no 2. According to the EC, out of 56 members to be elected for NA, 24 candidates have already been elected.

Six candidates including three women have already been elected unanimously in province no 1. Election is taking place there for two posts.

Similarly, there will be voting for all eight posts in province no 3 while election is taking place for seven posts in province no 4. A candidate towards Disabled and Marginalized category has already been elected unopposed, said EC Spokesperson, Nabaraj Dhakal.

Likewise, voting is taking place for remaining five posts in province no 5 as three women have been unanimously elected while there will be election for all posts in province no 6.

According to EC, election is taking place only for two posts towards Dalit and Marginalized category in province no 7 as other members have already been elected. Now 52 candidates are in the race for 32 posts, according to EC. RSS