By Our Reporter
Amidst speculations about whether the ruling Nepali Congress will agree to hold the local level elections in time, a meeting of the ruling political parties’ joint mechanism, the High-Level Political Coordination Committee, on Tuesday discussed fixing the dates for elections.
The meeting held at Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s official residence in Baluwatar, NC President and Prime Minister Deuba remarked on holding local level elections as per the constitutional provisions, however, other partners opined on the possibility for conducting all three-level elections at once. The meeting did not finalise the election dates as chairman of the ruling CPN (Unified Socialist) Madahv Kumar Nepal and Janata Samajwadi Party Nepal chairman Upendra Yadav were not present in the meeting.
Leader Nepal and Maoist Centre chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal are reportedly not ready to hold the local level elections by mid-May because of their poor political base. They want to hold local, provincial, and federal elections simultaneously, which is constitutionally not viable. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba also did not want to hurt Nepal and Dahal as he would not have become Prime Minister without their support.
The term of the sitting local level representatives is expiring on May 19.
After the meeting, the committee member and the spokesperson for the government Gyanendra Bahadur Karki informed that the meeting discussed holding the local level election in time.
However, the Committee is scheduled to discuss with the Election Commission to announce the election date.
“The local level election will be conducted as per constitutional provisions in time. We are in consultation with the Election Commission,” he said.
Karki further informed that the government was committed to holding the local level election in time to strengthen federalism.
The EC had earlier suggested the government to hold the local level elections on April 27 and May 5.
Earlier on January 14, the Election Commission had suggested the government to fix the date for local level elections by January 21 citing that the election body requires 120 days to complete 53 legal procedures before holding the local elections.
Will the ruling alliance continue to all elections?
Both Pushpa Kamal Dahal of the Maoist Centre and Madhav Kumar Nepal of CPN (Unified Socialist) have been seeking the support of the Nepali Congress in elections to win respectable seats in local, provincial, and federal level elections as their organizational base is not strong in masses. They are still busy expanding their organizations.
Chairmen of the two ruling communist parties have been reiterating that the alliance of the ruling parties will continue in all elections. They have also forged an alliance for January 26 National Assembly elections.
However, NC leaders, especially those close to Dr. Shekhar Koirala have been ruling out any alliance in the election. General Secretary Gagan Thapa two weeks ago said the alliance for the NA elections was the last electoral alliance among the ruling parties. Similar were the views of vice president Dhanraj Gurung.
But many leaders who are working in the rural areas argue that an alliance among the ruling parties is essential as the CPN-UML was still strong in villages.
“Still the majority of the UML supporters blindly support KP Sharma and his party, as such, it will be difficult for NC alone to defeat the UML in upcoming elections,” said Bhesh Raj Acharya, who lost the election of Ilam district president of NC recently.
Even PM Deuba himself is not against the alliance. He knows well that if an electrical alliance among ruling parties end, Maoist chair Dahal will not hesitate to with the UML.
Login to add a comment