Voters’ enthusiasm

The Himalayan Times

18 May 2017

Voters’ enthusiasm

Last week and the beginning of this week remained very exciting in the political environment of Nepal.  Finally, the Dahal led government fulfilled its promise by holding first phase of local level elections in three provinces after almost 20 years. Election Commission (EC) also deserves appreciation for its incredible job of holding the elections in a short period of time. Normally, it seeks at-least 120 days for overall preparation.  As said by it, 73 percent of votes were cast with much enthusiasm. Except few a unfortunate incidents, voting took place peacefully. All the voters are now anxiously waiting to hear the final results of vote counting expecting to see their real representatives elected and run the local government with extra-ordinary executive powers.

All the TV channels, FM stations and other media are trying their best to transmit the ongoing vote counting results regularly keeping in mind the eagerness of the voters. Counting of votes are in full swing in all the 34 districts “Counting of votes begins in 251 local levels, UML in front” (THT, March 16, Page 1). So far, it is interesting to see that the main opposition party’s mayoral candidates are leading in the major cities. However, the end result of the total votes obtained by all the candidates are yet to come and it may take few more days seeing the slow counting process. It may not be surprising for us to see if the UML candidates will win the race in most of the places considering the major political blunder made by Nepali Congress and Maoist Centre at the onset of the election by registering impeachment bill against the Chief Judge.

Also, another interesting political event is on the way to take place. As agreed between the NC and CPN-MC nine months ago, PM Dahal will hand over the political helm to NC boss, Sher Bahadur Deuba in a few days’ time. It is hoped that this time Dahal will not play any political game as cited by him during his meeting with RJPN leaders “Dahal to hand over power to Deuba this week” (THT, May 16, Page 1).

Rai Biren Bangdel

Maharajgunj, Kathmandu