KATHMANDU: The Election Commission (EC) has said that political parties will be allowed to include new candidates in the proportional representation (PR) closed list if any nominated candidate withdraws their name within the prescribed time for the House of Representatives election scheduled for March 5.
According to EC spokesperson Narayan Prasad Bhattarai, the Commission is currently verifying whether the PR closed lists submitted by parties comply with legal provisions on inclusiveness. Based on this review, the EC will notify the concerned political parties of any discrepancies by January 4.
Following the notification, political parties will be required to correct and resubmit their revised PR closed lists by Januay 11.
Bhattarai said that if any candidate included in the revised list wishes to withdraw their candidacy, January 12 has been fixed as the deadline to do so. Once a withdrawal application is submitted, the Commission will formally inform the respective party, which will then be allowed to nominate another candidate in place of the withdrawn one.
The Election Commission also informed that nominations under the proportional representation system were registered on December 28 and 29 from a total of 64 political parties, and the verification process is currently underway.
The provisional PR closed list will be made public on January 18. The EC stated that the general public will be allowed to file objections if any candidate included in the list is found to be legally ineligible. After investigating such claims, the Commission will publish the final list of PR candidates on February 3.
The EC clarified that once the final list is published, no further changes will be allowed.
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