Former Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli casts vote in Bhaktapur
Nov 20, 2022
Kathmandu [Nepal], November 20 : Former Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has voted in Bhaktapur as voting is underway for the general election. The voting in Nepal began in the wee hours of Sunday.
Speaking to reporters after casting vote, KP Sharma Oli has claimed that a government led by his party will be formed by December 1, The Himalayan Times reported. He said that the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) UML will form a majority government or at least form a coalition government.
KP Sharma Oli claimed that the new parties will not be able to gather votes to even become national parties. Notably, Oli is a candidate from Jhapa-5 for the House of Representatives.
"The UML will form a majority government, or at least a coalition government comprising parties that have forged an alliance with UML in the elections," The Himalayan Times quoted KP Sharma Oli as saying.
According to Nepal Election Commission (EC), only 32 per cent of voter turnout has been recorded till 1 pm (local time). It is the second general election since the promulgation of the constitution in 2015.
Notably, 2412 candidates are contesting for the House of Representatives under the First-Past-The-Post system (FPTP) while 2,199 candidates are contesting under the Proportional Representation (PR). Furthermore, 3,224 candidates are running under the Province Assembly under the FPTP system while 3,708 candidates are contesting under PR.
According to the Nepal Election Commission, a total of 17,988,570 voters have been registered with the Election Commission and 22,227 voting centres in 10,892 polling stations. A total of 141 temporary polling centres have been established and around 450,000 temporary voters could cast their vote from their nearest polling centres.
Nepal Election Commission stated that 246,960 officials and around 3 lakh security personnel have been deployed for the smooth functioning of the elections. The Election Commission (EC) has directed the election staff, security personnel, observers, monitoring team members or any individual to inform the concerned authorities about any activity that hinders the election process.
Nepal EC has asked the concerned authorities to prevent such activity from happening and take action against the wrongdoers. Notably, three layers of security arrangements have been made and a "reserve force" was in place which could reach the site within 30 minutes to deal with any untoward activities.
