Nepal faces charter hurdle over constituency delimitation

A Nepalese woman, right, posing for a photograph to obtain her voter’s identity card before the deadline to register for the upcoming constituent assembly elections, to be held on November 19, at the district election office in Kathmandu yesterday.

IANS/Kathmandu

Nepal is facing a constitutional hurdle over delimitation of electoral constituencies as it prepares for November 19 constituent assembly (CA) elections.

According to political leaders, if the problem is not addressed immediately, it will affect the election plan. For delimitating the constituencies under the first-past-the-post election system, the government has formed a constituency delimitation commission (CDC) a month ago but it has not made any progress yet. In 2008 CA elections, there were 240 electoral constituencies but they need to be re-demarcated as per the 2011 national census.

On the one hand constitution calls for increasing the constituencies in line with the population increase, but on the other hand it prohibits increasing the constituencies beyond 240. The CDC held discussion with top leaders of four major parties yesterday for clearing the hurdle.

“The CDC representatives told us about the constitutional difficulties and we are working to remove it,” NC vice president Ram Chandra Poudel told reporters after the meeting.

Parties are also divided on the basis of constituency delimitation.

Nepali Congress and CPN-UML feel that electoral constituencies should be delimited on the basis of both population and geography, while Madhes-based parties in the southern plan want to delineate on the basis of population.

The Madhes-based parties have demanded more seats in the Madhes saying that according to 2011 census, over 50% of population reside here. But other parties are of the view that there should be more electoral constituencies than in hill region.

“We told leaders of major parties about the constitutional complications. In particular, the provision of Article 63 (3A), which calls for increasing constituencies in line with the proportion of the percentage of population in Madhes and likewise population growth as basis for increasing constituencies in hill and mountains,” CDC chairman Tahir Ali Ansari said.

Political observers say if this problem is not addressed immediately, it will affect the government’s plan of holding election on November 19.