Skip to main content

UML discussing parliamentary election option

Amid discussions among major parties whether the country should go for local elections under the existing structure or the new federal set-up, the main opposition CPN-UML has floated the idea of skipping local and provincial polls and holding elections to federal parliament. During a standing committee meeting of the party on Thursday, almost all members are learnt to have made a pitch for federal elections, saying it’s already too late for local and provincial elections.
As per the constitutional deadline, the country must hold three levels of elections by January 2018. Senior UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal floated the idea of holding the elections to federal parliament by carving out 165 constituencies. “Almost all standing committee members agreed on the proposal,” said UML standing committee member Prithvi Subba Gurung, adding that local elections will not be able to resolve the looming constitutional crisis.
The UML’s view on going for federal elections comes just days after a tentative agreement among top leaders of three major parties that local elections should be held at the earliest. Thursday’s standing committee meeting entrusted party Chair Oli with the task of holding discussions with top leaders of major parties on holding federal elections. Subas Nembang, deputy leader of UML’s Parliamentary Party, however, said that the meeting decided to urge the government to ensure all three elections. He said the meeting held discussions on matters from different angles and holding federal elections was one of the ideas. According to Gurung, party’s standing committee members were of the view that holding local elections under the existing structure would be a regressive idea. 
“Local elections under the new set-up do not seem feasible as the Local Level Restructuring Committee is struggling to complete its work. To hold local elections under the present set-up, an amendment to the constitution will be required,” he said. “In view of the time constraint, leaders suggested that going for federal elections could be a better idea.”

Tika R. Pradhan
16-12-2016 The kathmandu Post

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bhattarai stresses on rebuilding Nepal-India ties

- Kamal Dev Bhattarai Former Prime Minister and Coordinator of Naya Shakti Nepal Baburam Bhattarai has said that there is a lack of ‘proper understanding’ in India about Nepal. Speaking to Post before concluding his visit to India on Tuesday, leader Bhattarai said mainly young generation of India has some flawed understanding about Nepal and bilateral relations between the two countries. The former prime minister maintained that there is a need of dialogue, debate and discussions to rebuild the bilateral relations in the change political context Nepal and India. Bhattarai made such remark after extensive discussions with Indian intellectual and policy makers during his seven-day stay in New Delhi.  Bhattarai underlined the need for building a bilateral relation between two countries at the top political levels. Bhattarai was of the view that there has been a huge change in the political scenario of both countries and bilateral relation should be rebuilt accordingly. He ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reduce Poverty: Much Neglected

Dilli Raj Khanal A progressive distributional policy together with the suitable institutional setups and arrangements at the grassroots for ensuring exclusively the access of poor to social and physical infrastructure as well as financial services is also a necessity . As a part of global event, poverty eradication day was celebrated in Nepal recently with claims that Nepal is one of the best performers in this area. If estimated poverty trends are looked into, there are no grounds to refute such an assertion. According to official figures, in 20 year’s period poverty has reduced by more than 20 per cent, from 41.8 per cent in 1995/96 to 21.2 per cent in 2015/16. Compared to the average GDP growth rate of 3.7 per cent in that period, the poverty reduction rate was about 3.2 per cent per annum. The breakdown by different updated poverty estimated periods give an interesting pattern. For instance, the annual poverty reduction rate was sharpest at 3.7 per cent annually during ...
Post a Comment
Read more

House panel has decided 3 % threshold provision

State Affairs Committee of the Parliament has decided to impose a threshold of three percent and at least one seat under the First-Past-the-Post electoral system to secure seats under the proportional representation system. The committee meeting on Wednesday took the decision to impose the threshold. Earlier, a sub committee formed by the committee decided to impose 3 percent threshold in the upcoming parliamentary election to become national political party. According to the subcommittee member Rameshwor Phuyal, the 27th meeting of the panel decided to provision three percent threshold after the rigorous discussion.  "Any political party must secure at least three percent seat under the Proportional Representation (PR) category and at least one seat under First-Past-the-Post category to become the national political party," said Phuyal.  He hailed the decision of the 11-member panel as historic. The sub-committee was failing to endorse the Bill Related to ...
Post a Comment
Read more