National
EC allots proportional seats of provincial vote
The Election Commission on Friday allotted seats to the political parties on the provincial assemblies under the Proportional Representation category of election, paving the way for formation of the provincial assemblies.The Election Commission on Friday allotted seats to the political parties on the provincial assemblies under the Proportional Representation category of election, paving the way for formation of the provincial assemblies.
There are a total of 220 seats to be filled by way of proportional representation in the seven state assemblies. The seven provinces will have assemblies of varying strengths. They will have a total of 550 lawmakers elected from the recent polls.
“We have written to the parties informing them about the seats they have won on the provincial assemblies under the PR system,” said Election Commissioner Narendra Dahal. “We have given them seven days to submit their list of candidates to be elected.”
Each party is required to have at least 33 percent women in each assembly while also proportionally representing various ethnic groups.
With the government yet to appoint provincial chiefs, who will be responsible for swearing in provincial lawmakers and summoning state assemblies, the provincial legislatures may take time to function. Although the Sher Bahadur Deuba-led government has been trying to appoint provincial chiefs, parties associated with the left alliance oppose the government’s plans as they want the incoming central government to do the job.
Amid disputes over whether PR candidates for the House of Representatives should be elected before the National Assembly is formed, the EC released PR results for state assemblies first. “We’ll start work on Saturday for tallying PR votes for the House. It may take a few days to allocate seats to the parties,” said Dahal, adding that the EC was still undecided whether to elect PR candidates for the lower house before the upper house election.
In the provincial assemblies, the CPN-UML has topped the PR chart by securing a total of 75 seats, followed by the NC’s 72 and 35 of the CPN (Maoist Centre). The UML comes on top except in Province 2 where the NC has got the highest number of PR seats. In Province 7, the UML and the NC have won an equal number of seats—8. Since the NC fared poorly under the first-past-the-post category, the largest party in the dissolved parliament will not be able to form governments in any of the provinces.
The left alliance, involving the UML and the Maoist Centre, has got a comfortable majority in six of the seven states to form governments. In Province 2, the Madhes centric parties—Sanghiya Samajbadi Forum Nepal and the Rastriya Janata Party, Nepal—have got 48 seats in total, a little short of majority.
Despite crossing the 1.5 percent vote threshold in Province 4, the Rastriaya Prajatantra Party and the Bibeksheel Sajha Party have been denied seats. The Nepal Majdoor Kisan Party and the RPP failed to get seats in provinces 6 and 7, respectively, despite having the minimum vote percentage. “Although they were eligible for the seats, they failed to garner adequate numbers of vote,” said an EC official.