Ambitious manifestos

                          

The Himalayan Times

11 May 2017

Ambitious manifestos

The local level elections to be held on 14 May in three provinces after about 20 years have raised curiosity, enthusiasm and expectations among the local population. Nominated candidates for mayors, deputy mayors and other positions are busy with home visits and campaigning to lure voters. Political parties have put in all their efforts to declare ambitious manifestos and development programmes. It seems that their manifests, if sincerely implemented, would turn all the metropolitan, sub-metropolitan and rural municipalities into prosperous cities and towns within the next five years as recently mentioned in the manifesto of Nepali Congress Mayoral candidate for Kathmandu Metropolitan City “Joshi promises “well-managed metropolis” (THT, May 9, Page 3)

All the major political parties have made several promises in their political manifestos. They have even join hands together to get elected in spite of their different political principles and ideologies. What a political drama is there to see in these local level elections. Many such promises were made by them in the past also. None of them were fulfilled. However, political awareness level of voters, especially in the urban and semi urban areas has significantly increased which could be one of the crucial factors for electing the right representatives in the upcoming elections rather than blindly going after the political parties. If this really happens, appropriate representatives will be elected who will be the real change agents in the new federal set-up.

Time is running fast. Not many days are left for the first phase of elections. There were not sufficient days for properly educating the voters. Confusions among them still persist; where to put the stamps on the ballot papers with multiple symbols representing different political parties.

Rai Biren Bangdel

Maharajgunj, Kathmandu