New Delhi: Nepalis will vote today, November 20, to elect their representatives for the parliamentary and provincial assemblies amidst rising disenchantment over the fact that it is the same old faces who are standing for elections this time around.Here is a quick primer on the numbers – and the issues at hand – of the elections.In numbers More than 17,988,570 voters can vote to directly select candidates for 165 seats in the House of Representatives and 330 seats in the seven provincial assemblies. Those who will occupy the remaining 110 and 220 seats in the HoR and PC, respectively, will be selected from a list of Proportional Representation candidates submitted to the Election Commission by political parties ahead of the polls.Around 50.8% of the electorate are men, while women account for 49.2% or 8.8 million. There are also 185 members of the LGBTQI community registered as voters.For the 165 seats to the House of Representatives, there are 2,412 candidates, including 225 women in the fray. For the provincial assembly, 3,224 candidates are standing for election in the ‘First Past The Post’ seats.At the polling booth, Nepali voters will be handed four ballot papers. The first one is for the direct election of a candidate to HoR, followed by one to select the political party for PR seats. The exact same process applies in the case of the elections to the provincial assembly as well.Officials from the election commission work to set up polling station a day ahead of the general elections, in Bhaktapur, Nepal November 19, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Navesh ChitrakarAre people enthusiastic about the elections?This is the first time in the country’s parliamentary history that elections will be held after the completion of an entire term of the parliament. It is also only the second parliamentary election under the 2015 constitution.There is large-scale disillusionment and people have felt that the elections would bring in the same old political leaders. This led to a new crop of younger, independent candidates entering the electoral battlefield, attempting to fire up voters.Nepal’s voter turnout is usually high. But in the local elections held in May this year, the turnout was 64%, which was the lowest since the 2008 constituent assembly elections, which saw 61.8%.The turnout at the 2017 parliamentary and provincial elections was 68.63%.Also read: Favourites, Alliances, Numbers: All the Questions Ahead of Nepal’s November Polls AnsweredWhen will the results be declared?Not for some time.Counting is a complicated process, with four ballot papers of each voter for two types of seats and bodies requiring counting.Stating that he was very concerned about the “sluggish vote count”, Chief Election Commissioner Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya told The Kathmandu Post last week that all the results would be out by December 8. However, the results of the election to the direct ‘First Past The Post’ seats will be out first, “within three days of counting beginning,” he added. All the rest of the counting for the proportional seats will also finish by the end of November.After that, the Election Commission will have to divide the PR seats among parties based on their vote percentage and publish the names from their previously submitted lists.The “sluggish” counting has indeed been criticised, with a former CEC putting the blame on the complexity of the ballot papers and frequent challenges raised by political parties due to narrow margins of victory.Who are the key players in the elections?As explained by Kamal Dev Bhattarai for The Wire, the fight to form the next government would be between two alliances, one led by the Nepali Congress and another by the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist).The members of the NC-led electoral alliance are the CPN (Maoist Center), CPN (Unified Socialist), Socialist Party Nepal and other fringe parties, sometimes called the ‘democratic-left’ alliance. CPN-UML leads the second alliance, and its members are the Upendra Yadav-led Janata Samajbadi, the royalist Rashtriya Prajatantra Party and other smaller parties. Besides, a slew of smaller parties and independent candidates have jumped into the fray, hoping to cash in on voters’ rising antipathy for mainstream political leaders.Also read: Interview | ‘Monarchy in Nepal Will Mean More Respectful Ties With India, China’: RPP LeaderWhat are the critical issues for voters this time?According to Reuters, voters have rising energy and food prices on their minds as the economy slows down. This year, the economy is slated to grow at 4.7%, compared to 5.8% last year, as per the Asian Development Bank.There are also concerns about the lack of jobs, with a majority of Nepali workers making a beeline for overseas employment. Both the main parties have made promises to create hundreds of thousands of jobs yearly.Besides, political stability is also a concern. The political volatility over the last five years occurred despite the pre-election Left alliance winning the majority in the 2017 elections. While the parliament has completed its full term, CPN-UML’s K.P. Oli Sharma did try to get it dissolved twice when he was prime minister, before the Supreme Court restored the house.Who will likely form the next government?In Nepal, all opinion and exit polls are banned under the election code of conduct.However, as per internal assessments by parties and security agencies, reported by The Kathmandu Post, Nepali Congress is likely to emerge as the single largest party. It also won the most vote in this year’s local elections. According to some calculations, it could win around 100 to 110 parliamentary seats, compared to 63 in 2017. The CPN-UML’s tally is projected to come down from 121 in 2017 to double figures, dropping to around 75 to 80 seats.
