Election through Figures

As the Horizon gets a bit purple, and birds begin their chirps Sunday morning, people may have a different priority. They may be going to their designated polling booths –10,892 altogether across the country — to decide the political fate and future of the country, at least for coming five years.

By the dusk, when sun sets, the fate of 4,613 candidates –2,414 under the first past the post and remaining 2,199 under the proportional representation system–for a total of 275 seats in the House of Representatives will have been sealed in two different categories of ballot boxes.

There will be similar categories of ballot boxes for a total of 550 of which 330 fall under the FPTP category and remaining 220 seats under the PR system in seven  provincial legislature. While 3,224 candidates are trying their luck under the FPTP and another 3,708 under the PR system for seven provinces. Altogether, 17.9 million voters are eligible to elect these representative bodies. According to Chief Election Commissioner Dinesh Thpaliya, the Commission has made full proof arrangements to ensure that the poll is conducted with the highest participation of voters in a free, fair and fearless atmosphere. He said “our attempt will be to encourage maximum voting, least rejection”.

The counting of votes will begin immediately after the ballot boxes are transferred from polling centres to the counting centres, but it will be entirely for the local office of the Election Commission to decide the timing of the counting in a safe and secure atmosphere. EC sources said that initial trends may begin coming from Monday noon. In order to create an enabling atmosphere, government has deployed all the three security agencies–Nepal Army, Armed Police Force and the Nepal Police–on the recommendation of the EC with around 300,000 of them together at round the clock-job.

In addition, 246,960 government employees have been assigned electoral responsibility.