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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 Political Parties due to the dispute over threshold in the committee. Most of the fringe political party members in the committee were against any threshold provision in the bill. 

Nepal Workers and Peasants Party lawmaker Prem Suwal and CPN (ML) lawmaker Aaindra Sundar Nembang voted against the provision in the sub-committee meeting this morning. Major political parties including Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, CPN (Maoist Centre) and Rastriya Prajatantra Party were in favour of setting at least three percent threshold while most of the other fringe political parties were against threshold in the SAC.  Though the original bill registered by the government had proposed only 1.5 percent threshold, major political parties had registered amendment on the bill demanding three to five percent threshold. 

The sub-committee will submit its report to the SAC for endorsement. The threshold provision will come in to effect only after the bill endorsing from the parliament full House and certification from the president.

MyRepublica

22/03/2017

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