Kathmandu, Dec 7 Registration of political parties to contest the parliamentary elections scheduled for March 5 next year under the proportional representation (PR) system began in Nepal on Sunday.
Nepal elects members of the House of Representatives through both the First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) and PR systems.
In the 275-member lower house, 165 members are elected under the FPTP system and 110 under the PR system, as mandated by Nepal’s Constitution.
“As per the schedule published earlier by the Election Commission, representatives of political parties have been arriving at the EC office from early Sunday morning to register their parties for the PR system,” Suman Ghimire, information officer at the EC, told IANS.
According to the schedule published by the EC, parties must submit their applications for registration from 10 a.m. on Sunday until 4 p.m. on Tuesday. The EC will then publish the list of political parties registered for the PR system on December 10.
On December 28 and 29, political parties must submit the final closed list of candidates contesting under the PR category. The EC will publish the final closed list of candidates on February 3 next year. As per the approved election schedule, voting will take place at designated polling centers on March 5 from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., according to the EC.
As per the Nepal's Constitution, at least one-third of the total number of members elected from each political party represented in the Federal Parliament must be women.
The PR system is crucial to ensure at least 33 percent representation of women if candidates elected under the FPTP system fall short of this quota.
While fielding candidates under the proportional electoral system, political parties must ensure representation—based on population—of women, Dalits, Indigenous nationalities, Khas Arya, Madhesis, Tharus, Muslims, and people from backward regions, as required by the Constitution.
Political parties are mandatorily required to include at least 50 percent women in the closed list they submit to the EC for the PR category, in accordance with Section 28 of the House of Representatives Election Act.
Meanwhile, as many as 117 political parties have registered with the EC to contest elections under the FPTP system, according to Ghimire. Several of them are new political parties representing Gen Z, whose protests toppled the KP Sharma Oli-led government, paving the way for the current government led by Sushila Karki.
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