Ensure voting rights

 The Himalayan Times

24 March 2022

Ensure voting rights

Following the promulgation of constitution in 2072 B.S, three tyres of elections were held to elect people’s representatives for the local, provincial and federal levels of governments under the federal structures. People had enthusiastically participated at all the election level with high hopes of seeing political stability in the country and ultimately a peaceful and prosperous country. Now, the people seem to be losing hope of seeing a stable government and prosperous nation after the almost two-thirds majority government of the then Nepal Communist Party could not complete its five-year term owing to its internal political feud and self-centred politics of the senior leaders.

The second general elections of the local level governments are scheduled to take place on May 13 of this year. Major parties, especially the coalition partners of the Deuba-led government, have started looking around for options to get their candidates elected by forging poll alliances with each other. The main opposition UML seems to be facing tough challenges because of the five-party alliance’s political strategy. The Rastriya Prajantantra Party (RPP) under its new leadership seems to be aggressively campaigning in the major cities, blaming the three major political parties of failing to lead the nation and making Nepal a sub-colonial nation by signing the MCC Nepal compact despite people’s objection in the streets.

None of the previous governments did bother to implement the SC’s September 2018 directive to ensure voting rights of the migrant workers. And, this coalition government does not seem serious to follow the SC’s directive in securing their voting rights for the upcoming elections “No voting rights for Nepalis abroad” (THT, 21 March, Page 1). If 115 countries and territories in the world can manage out-of-country voting system, there is no reason for Nepal government to be making excuses to implement the system as summed up by your editorial “Voting rights” (THT, 22 March, Page 4). However, it is encouraging to see some leaders of major political parties raising their voices for voting rights of the migrant workers.

Rai Biren Bangdel

Maharajgunj