Major parties submit closed list of PR candidates to Election Commission

KATHMANDU: The major parties have submitted their closed list of candidates under proportional representation (PR) electoral system to the Election Commission (EC) for the House of Representatives (HoR) and Provincial Assembly elections.

The representatives of Nepali Congress (NC), CPN-UML, Maoist Center, CPN Unified Socialist and other parties have reached the EC on Monday and submitted the closed list of PR candidates.

The EC Commission had fixed Sunday and Monday as the days to submit the closed list of PR candidates.

The EC, however, said that the names submitted today would not be the final ones as the closed list can be corrected till October 2.

Presenting the closed list, NC General Secretary Bishwa Prakash Sharma said that the atmosphere was of the general election and his party would go to the people with a new vision.

Similarly, Maoist leader Barsha Man Pun vowed to maintain the ruling coalition and go to the elections. He added the Unified Socialist would also contest the election from the Maoist’s election symbol and is together in the closed list.

Leader Pun clarified that those who were previously included in PR list and those who contested the elections at the local level were excluded from the closed list.

Similarly, UML leader Niraj Acharya also said that those who was previously in the PR list were not repeated this time.

According to the EC, 68 applications from 76 parties have been submitted for PR system for the House of Representatives election.

The EC estimated that there would be 20,000 PR candidates if all the parties submit the closed list.

According to the mixed election system, 40 percent of the members in HoR and Provincial Assembly are elected through the PR electoral system.

Accordingly, the EC informed that 110 lawmakers in the HoR and 220 in the Provincial Assembly will be elected through PR system.

According to EC, it will verify and go through the closed list of PR candidates submitted by parties from September 20-25. If errors are found, the EC would notify the parties to made amendment to the list.

After receiving the information from EC, parties will have to submit the corrected list from September 26 to October 2.