Election preparations 

The decision of the Election Commission to delay the implementation of Election Code of Conduct by a week following the declaration of local election last Monday is a 

curious one. Going by its own precedent, the commission should have immediately enforced the code. There is no other way to make sense of the delay other than to conclude that the commission acted on the direction of the ruling parties. Taking advantage of the delay, the Home Ministry on Thursday transferred 20 Deputy 

Inspectors General (DIGs) of Nepal Police, 20 DIGs of Armed Police Force and 35 Chief District Officers (CDOs). The two police forces will be deployed for local election slated for May 14th, while the CDOs will be responsible for coordinating security arrangements. Past election officials Republica talked to suspected that these last-minute transfers were aimed at influencing the election.

There are also reports that Finance Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara during Thursday’s cabinet meeting proposed to transfer Rs 100 billion to his pet projects. If that is the case, this was also clearly aimed at influencing the electorate. It is sad that the top leaders of Nepali Congress and CPN (Maoist Center), the two main partners in the ruling coalition, instead of clearing the many hurdles to timely local election, are busy trying to illegally stack the deck against other political parties. This also raises a big question mark over the neutrality of the commission. Can a politically-motivated 

Election Commission be relied on to conduct free and fair election? This controversy is also an unnecessary distraction at a time the commission has its hands full doing the virtually impossible task of laying the election groundwork in the lead up to May 14. From the time the taskforce under Minister Hitraj Pandey, which has been entrusted with resolving outstanding disputes related to delineation of local level units, submits its report (if it can indeed carry out such a complicated task so soon), the commission will have just 76 days to complete all poll preparations.

These include fixing polling stations, finalizations of parties contesting the elections and formulation of by-laws and regulations. Then over 14 million ballot papers, of 16,000 different types, will have to be printed in less than two months, an impossible task unless new printing machines are immediately made available to Janak Sikshya Samagri Kendra, the government printer. 

As much as we would like to see election on May 14, it is clear that it will be extremely difficult to hold election on that date unless the state devotes all its resources to the gargantuan task. And this is why the recent dubious actions of ruling parties, and of the pliant commission, are so disappointing. It appears that the ruling parties want election only so long as there is a guarantee that they will do well. It is also clear that the poll date has been announced in bit of a haste. This does not mean that local election on May 14 is impossible. It might still be doable, but developments so far have not been encouraging.  

 
• election commission