IFES
We can’t be sure whether elections will take place on 19 November, but the achievements made by the EC so far have been rather impressive. The bottom line, however, is that there is no real alternative to polls so all the existing hurdles need to be overcome for free and fair elections to happen on time.
More than 500,000 people who voted in 2008 haven’t applied for voter ID cards. Studies estimated that there would be at least one million new voters since the last election in 2008, but instead we are down by five million. Experts point out that this number is unusually high because many don’t have citizenship cards yet. According to a study done by the Forum for Women, Law, and Development, 4.3 million Nepali of voting age are deprived of citizenship certificates.
The EC’s own records show that altogether 12 million Nepalis are eligible to vote. Three million are working abroad at the moment, whereas in 2008 the number was 1.9 million. And those who are 18 or older stands at 16.4 million. This means up to 700,000 citizens are still missing from the electoral list.
It would be a travesty if so many citizens are deprived of their right to vote. So while the government’s willingness to extend the registration deadline after the EC’s meeting with Khil Raj Regmi this week is a welcome sign, it must first find out why these people didn’t bother to show up outside their district and ward offices. If this requires all parties to agree on making amendments to the electoral law, then the commission should move ahead immediately.
Since we don’t have a method of allowing our non-residential population to vote, none of them will be able to choose their representatives. It is near impossible to incorporate them for November’s election because technical issues of this kind take a long time to devise and implement, but the state must make sure that at least those who currently reside in Nepal are not left out.
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