The third and final phase of local elections was completed on Monday in the Eastern Tarai Province 2. Elections were held in a remarkably uneventful manner. Incidents of violence and disruption were even fewer than during the first two phases, and there was not even a single fatality. The peaceful electoral environment is noteworthy particularly since the Eastern Tarai has a reputation as restive place, especially during elections. Beginning in the 1990s, there were many cases of electoral fraud in the Tarai, which was aided by hired men from across the border in India. Over the past few years, there has been great discontent in the Tarai towards the state. For this reason the security forces were concerned, and had deployed a massive presence for the elections. But their fears did not materialize. Furthermore, the security forces also acted in a restrained manner. They do not seem to have intimidated or provoked the population, as some had feared.

The election count has now begun, and the Election Commission (EC) has adopted a very cautious and meticulous process. The Commission is concerned not to allow any disputes to arise. It is also keen to prevent disruptions of the kind that happened in Bharatpur after the first phase of the election. The counting process has thus been very slow so far. The EC has decided to put wire cages around the vote counters, so that political party representatives cannot interfere in their operations. While this method does seem to be working, it is rather cumbersome. Perhaps other methods of preventing disruption can be thought about in the future.

Since the counting has been slow, we may have to wait a couple of weeks for concrete results from the polls. However, early indications show that the results may be of a rather different nature than in the first two phases of local elections. While the CPN-UML was the largest party in the first two phases, it looks to be lagging substantially behind the Nepali Congress (NC) this time around. Moreover, the CPN (Maoist Centre) seems to be performing quite well. And perhaps more noteworthy is the fact that the Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal (RJP-N) is trending to lead in quite a few local units. For many, this was unexpected. The RJP-N was expected to perform poorly, especially since there were so many internal disputes over the selection of candidates. The Sanghiya Samajbadi Forum-Nepal (SSF-N) also seems to be performing at par with the RJP-N. The trend seems to demonstrate that large sections of the population in the Tarai remain unhappy with the UML and its leader KP Oli for the manner in which he belittled the Madhesi population when he was prime minister. Furthermore, voters also seem to be supporting the agenda of the Madhesi parties for a constitution amendment for the revision of state boundaries and other provisions to increase representation for Madhesis.