NEPALI POLITICS

  The Himalayan Times 28 July 2023 Shame on them Elections are one of the most fundamental components of democracy and critical to ensure that democracy provides a good quality of life to the people by linking their interests to the government through their elected representatives. A competitive and transparent election process enables dialogue and debate on public issues and ensures representatives are responsive to the people’s well-being. Since many years, candidates and political parties have rarely published the exact amount of their election expenditures. The constitution promulgated in 2015, converted Nepal into a federal democratic republic and provisioned that parliamentary and local level elections would be held every 5 years. Even though the candidates are required to submit their election expenses to the EC within 30 days of the elections, the implementation of this law has not been fully achieved owing to the irresponsibility of the contesting political leaders.

The Himalayan Times 21 July 2023 Old vs new political parties The country has seen the entry of new political parties in national politics before and after the promulgation of the new constitution in 2015. They were, indeed, new since they had fresh political faces and fancy political manifestos, showing commitments to drastic socio-economic development of the nation and its people, to attract voters towards their optimistic political goals. These new parties did not have any black spots of corruption or mismanagement on them so far in comparison to the old political parties. That’s why the people have boundless expectations from these new parties considering the poor performance of the old parties. Many such new political politics were, however, side-lined before or after the promulgation of 2015 constitution. The sudden and surprising emergence of the Rastriya Swatantra Part (RSP) during the general and by-elections was a red signal for the old political parties. However

  The Himalayan Times 7 July 2023 Revisit electoral system An election is not simply a process to choose candidates but a powerful tool to promote a sense of belongingness and encourage political debate and dialogue among the electorate. A country cannot be democratic until its citizens have the opportunity to choose their representatives through an election. Periodic election is one of the key components in the process of democratic representation. It helps to create relationship between the state and its citizens. In other words, a fair and free election is the medium for the voters to express their opinion, select their representatives to represent them in the HoR, who in turn, form the government to govern the nation. The most common systems include the First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) and proportional representation (PR). The FPTP or the simple majoritarian system, is an electoral system in which citizens of a constituency cast votes for the candidate to represent them in the H