The upcoming Sunday will mark the second general election in Nepal. This election, to be held on the 20th of November 2022 (4th of Mangshir 2079) will be conducted alongside the election for the provincial assemblies. This election follows the local-level elections held on the 13th of May earlier this year. But the distinction seems to be marred by many citizens. This lack of clarity is one of the reasons the participation rate is expected to be lower compared to the local-level elections and elections in the previous year.
This week, Safer-I ran a social media series where we aimed to clear confusion and queries that the general public might have regarding the upcoming elections and encourage everyone to vote and more importantly, vote responsibly. You can find the series on our Instagram linked here.
Safer-I Nepal Election Series on Instagram
The first thing that we need to know about the upcoming election is that we, the general public, will be voting for two rounds of polls; first the election for the 275 House of Representatives and second the election for the 550 provincial assembly seats.
The House of Representatives (प्रतिनिधि सभा) is one of the houses of the Federal Parliament of Nepal. The members of the house of representatives are selected via parallel voting. The house has a total of 275 members, 165 of which are chosen through each electoral constituency in Nepal while the remaining 110 are chosen via proportional voting. This house is concerned with making and passing federal-level laws.
The provincial assembly (प्रदेश सभा) is the unicameral legislative assembly of Nepal. A total of 550 provincial seats of assembly are available of which 330 are chosen via electoral constituency and the remaining 220 are chosen via party-representative proportional voting. This assembly is concerned with raising voices about the issues specific to their region in the assembly.
A total of four ballot boxes will be used in the upcoming election. In the first round of voting, the general public will cast their votes for their preferred candidate to elect them in the House of Representatives. This will be followed by casting votes for their preferred political party for proportional votes. The same process will be repeated at the provincial level where the voters will first vote for their preferred candidates followed by their preferred political party. The votes are to be dropped in a box with the corresponding election round numbers wherein the ballot papers for candidates are mentioned in red text on a white background while those for the parties are mentioned in black text on a white background.
One of the barriers to information collection for voters has been not knowing who they should be voting for in the election. This link can be used to look up details about the candidates by the electoral constituency that they hope to represent. The details about their candidacy can be collected from the same website. The complete collection of all candidates and their details can be downloaded via the election commission website linked here. These details can be used to further collect information about the candidates, what their plans are, who they wish on representing, and what their overall agenda looks like. Knowing this allows the general public to understand which candidate most closely resembles the future that they would like to see for their community.
Ekantipur Election Data Lookup Filter
The upcoming election is also plagued by barriers to voting for marginalized communities. Section 92 of the ‘Local Level Election Directive, 2078’ published by the EC states that gender and sexual minority groups along with pregnant women, people with disabilities, and sick and old people should be prioritized during the voting process. But marginalized communities like people with disabilities and queer people are often excluded from the voting and election process.
Not only is there minimal representation of said communities in the list of candidates and even in the election workers, but there are also active infrastructural and institutional barriers to safe and inclusive practices for marginalized members of society.
For many transgender, intersex, and gender-diverse individuals and other members of the LGBTQIA+ community, the process of voting is often one laced with violence, abuse, and discrimination. The Nepali government allows its citizens to receive a citizenship card with an ‘other’ marker which though revolutionary in its own right, also questions individual identity and the right to self-identification and dignity. The hassles in receiving an ‘other’ citizenship card and an even harder process to have your real gender reflected on your voting ID dissociate queer voters from the election process. The queer community has long advocated for increasing information about the community and enforcement of empathetic understanding of queer issues among the election workers, fellow voters, and the government itself.
For other marginalized communities like people with disabilities, the promises of accessibility and inclusivity feel unsure. Government officials have mentioned that to make voting more accessible to people with disabilities, they will be provided with queue prioritizing, travel passes, braille voting mechanisms, raised voting platforms, and so on. The government has also mentioned that it will be operating 100 disabled-friendly voting centers. This though appreciable fails to realize the complete diversity of individual abilities and still puts pressure on voters with a disability to seek out additional accessibility measures which can be exhausting and perplexing.
In this upcoming election, we as a society, need to be aware of the political and civic responsibilities that we have on hand. Firstly, we need to be aware of the election system in the country and how voting rights aren’t uniformly distributed among all members of the community. We need to be educated on issues plaguing marginalized communities, realize our role in the alleviation of such issues, and draw the attention of the concerned communities. Secondly, we need to be aware of the power that a vote has and be aware of the candidacy options in our local community. Being informed allows us to vote responsibly. And responsible voting is the need for bringing long-due socio-political changes in the country.
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