Nepalese get to vote after 20 years
Kathmandu voters issued one-metre long ballot paper listing 878 hopefuls
KathmaNDu: Voting started in Nepal yesterday in its first local elections in two decades, a landmark moment in the country’s fraught transition to democracy.
Polls opened in three provinces at 7am (local time) with nearly 50,000 candidates vying for the position of mayor, deputy mayor, ward chairman and ward member in 283 local municipalities.
The ballot paper in the capital Kathmandu – one of the largest constituencies – was around one metre long to accommodate the 878 candidates.
“It is difficult to expect much from our politicians – they have always been selfish and not worked for the people – but I hope that with this election things will change,” housewife Shova Maharjan, 41, said after casting her vote in the capital.
A bomb was found early in the morning outside the house of a mayoral candidate for the main opposition CPN-UML party in Bhaktapur, 15km east of Kathmandu.
“A team has already disposed of it and no one was injured,” senior local police officer Shyam Oliya said.
The vote has been split into two phases because of unrest in the southern plains bordering India, where the minority Madhesi ethnic group is refusing to participate until an amendment to the constitution is passed.
The remaining four provinces, considered potential flashpoints for election-related violence, will vote in the second phase due to be held on June 14.
Around 231,000 security personnel have been deployed for the two phases of the election, including 75,000 temporary police officers hired to boost manpower, according to the home ministry.
Local government representatives were last elected in 1997. Their five-year terms expired in 2002, at the height of the country’s civil war, and their mandate was allowed to lapse.
Bureaucrats have since filled those positions, many appointed on the basis of allegiance to the main political parties.
Corruption has flourished, hampering the delivery of basic services – from healthcare to the appointment of teachers at government schools.
The peace deal that ended the decade-long Maoist insurgency in 2006 began the impoverished Himalayan nation’s transition from a Hindu monarchy to a secular republic. As part of the accord, a new constitution was written and finally adopted in September 2015, nearly a decade after the end of the conflict.
The charter mandated that local elections, followed by provincial and then national elections, be held by January 2018 – the final step in the drawn-out peace process. — AFP