Kathmandu: Voting is underway across the country today for Nepal’s House of Representatives election, conducted following the recent Gen-Z movement. Polling is taking place in all 77 districts in a single phase from 7 AM to 5 PM.
The election is being organized by the Election Commission Nepal to elect 275 members of the federal parliament. Of these, 165 seats are being decided through the first-past-the-post (FPP) electoral system, while 110 seats will be filled through the proportional representation (PR) system.
A total of 65 political parties are contesting in the FPP system with 61 election symbols. In the direct elections, 3,406 candidates are competing, including 3,017 men, 388 women and one candidate from another gender category. Under the proportional representation system, 3,135 candidates are in the race, including 1,363 men and 1,772 women.
According to the Election Commission, the election involves 18,903,689 voters nationwide, including 9,663,358 men, 9,240,131 women and 200 voters from other gender categories. In addition, 186,142 temporary voters have been registered.
For the voting process, 23,112 polling centres have been established at 10,967 polling locations across the country, along with 143 temporary polling sites. Authorities have also arranged priority access to voting for senior citizens, persons with disabilities, pregnant women and elderly voters.
A large security deployment has been mobilized to ensure a peaceful election. The security arrangement includes personnel from the Nepali Army, Nepal Police, Armed Police Force Nepal, the National Investigation Department and election police officers.
To support the electoral process, the commission printed more than 42 million ballot papers for both the FPP and PR systems and distributed them to polling centres across the country.
The election is being monitored by four international and 39 national organizations. Senior leaders including President Ram Chandra Paudel and Vice President Ram Sahaya Prasad Yadav have also participated in the voting process and urged citizens to exercise their democratic right.
(RSS)
