By Our Reporter
The huge votes garnered by independent candidate Balen Shah in Kathmandu leaving the Nepali Congress and CPN-UML candidates far behind has come as the biggest surprise of the local election this time.
When popular rapper and a structural engineer announced and filed his candidacy for the post of mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City, many had not imagined that he could garner the largest votes and even get elected. But since the time counting began, he has been continuously leading the votes, with almost double of the UML’s strong candidate Keshav Sthapit.
The votes received by Balen Shah have sent two clear messages: People are frustrated with the ways political parties functioning in Nepal, and the second, the traditional party voters also revolt when they field wrong candidates.
UML’s Stahapit, who changed parties in the past was also dragged into controversy because of his remarks, was rejected by UML voters while the NC voters hesitated to vote to the wife of Prakashman Singh. Moreover, the youth who launched an effective online campaign in favour of Balen managed to convince a larger section of the voters to cast vote for Balen. Even the cadres and leaders of these two parties voted in favour of Balen. Moreover, nearly 50 per cent voters in Kathmandu did not cast vote because they did not like the candidates of the major two parties. The voters’ turnout in Kathmandu was 52 per cent, lowest across the country. And it might be a revolt against the parties which fielded wrong candidates.
The craze for Balen among youth finally paid. Most of the youth living abroad and those obtaining higher education within country exerted pressure on their parents to cast their vote to Balen. As a result, most of the sons and daughters of the parents, who have been giving votes for the parties of their choice in the past, gave their vote to Balen this time.
Obviously, the surprise victory of Balen could pose threat to the traditional parties. Imagine, what will happen if the youth who backed Balen today contest the parliament election taking the symbol of stick. Obviously, the candidates of major parties will be in a difficult position. If all those who voted for Balen in each ward, cast vote in favour of his candidate, many of the leaders will lose the parliamentary elections, at least in Kathmandu.
Inefficient Election Commission
Inefficiency of the Election Commission has been exposed during the recent local polls. It has already been seven days since the local level elections were held, but the EC has been unbale to make results of metropolis and sub metropolitan cities. Even the final results of many municipalities have not come out. People have to wait for at least five days to know the election results of municipalities, and of the EC does not give momentum to vote counting in metropolis, people need to wait at least a fortnight to get the final results.
In other countries, the people could know the all poll results withing 24 hours after the counting begins. But in Nepal, it takes days to count the ballot papers.
If the EC adopts new technology, this tedious wait for election results could be shortened. When Nepal used voting machines back in 2007 during the Constituent Assembly election in Kathmandu 1, the EC could easily introduce voting machines in all levels for the voting. But EC does not want this. When both voting and counting process will be easy by managing voting machines, the EC has not paid any attention to this aspect for years. Why?
It sems the EC is reluctant in introducing electronic voting machine perhaps due to greed for the commission its officials receive while printing the ballot paper and procuring other essential items.
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