KATHMANDU: On May 13, 2022, Nepali voters will vote for representatives to fill as many as 35,221 local legislative and executive seats.
The voters, above 18 years of age, will elect their leadership from a total of 145,112 candidates in the election to be held in 753 places including 6 metropolitan cities, 11 sub-metropolitan cities, 276 municipalities, and 460 village municipalities.
Nepal’s local bodies will have 753 mayors and chairpersons and 753 deputy mayors and vice-chairpersons.
Likewise, 6,743 ward chairpersons will be elected at the local level while the number of open members will be 13,486.
As many as 35,221 elected posts will be decided on May 13.
The May 13 local election is the second local election since the adoption of the new constitution and the transition to federalism after the promulgation of the new constitution in 2015.
According to the Election Commission, about 200,000 more young voters will be able to cast ballots in this election.
Each ward, the smallest local unit in the country, will have at least one polling station, for a total of 21,955 polling stations.
Polling stations will be open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Voters will elect a total of 35,221 local legislative and executive representatives.
Nepal has a total of 6,743 wards, and the voters will vote for five ward members (a chairperson and four general members) plus an executive head and deputy executive head for their municipality (mayor and deputy mayor) or rural municipality (chair and vice-chair).
Likewise, each voter can, therefore, vote for seven local representatives.
In total, 35,221 local legislative and executive representatives will be directly elected to a five-year term of office.
There are 145,112 candidates running for these seats.
Local level and the number of voters
A total of 1,77,333,723 voters are participating in the election, of which 89,92,010 are male voters and 87,41,530 are female voters. The number of “other” voters is 183.
There are 1,877 polling stations and 4,051 polling booths.
Province 1 has 137 local levels including 46 municipalities and 88 rural municipalities including 1 metropolis and 2 sub-metropolises.
The province has a total of 3.347 million voters, 1,877 polling stations and 4,051 booths.
Likewise, Madesh Pradesh has one metropolis and three sub-metropolises, and 136 local levels with 73 and 59 municipalities and villages respectively.
Likewise, Bagmati Province has three metropolitan cities and one sub-metropolitan city.
There are 119 local levels in Bagmati with 41 municipalities and 74 village municipalities.
There are 34,12,869 voters in this state and 4,095 from 17,92 polling stations will participate in the polling.
Likewise, Gandaki Pradesh has as many as 1,789,411 voters.
Similarly, Lumbini Pradesh has 109 bodies, including 4 sub-metropolitan municipalities, 32 municipalities and 73 village municipalities.
There are 32,19,457 voters in this state with 1,629 polling stations and 3,832 booths.
Karnali has 25 municipalities, 54 village municipalities and 79 municipalities.
It has 1 million 1 thousand 2 hundred 82 total voters and 907 polling stations.
In the Sudhur Paschim Pradesh, there are 88 local bodies, including 1 sub-metropolis, 33 municipalities, and 54 village municipalities.
The total electorate here is 1,632,150. There are 1135 polling stations and 2103 booths.
Polling stations and staff preparing for local elections
The Election Commission has completed all preparations for the May 13 local election.
Security personnel has been deployed at the polling stations.
A total of 1,09,088 staff members and 65,865 volunteers have reached their respective polling stations with the election materials required for the election.
Likewise, 5,000 election observers have been deployed.
Two hundred and sixty-five thousand security personnel from all the three security agencies including the temporary police will be deployed in the local level polling stations.
Political parties contesting the local election
Out of the 79 registered political parties, 65 are in the fray. 14 parties have not nominated a single candidate.
A total of 145,011 candidates including 55,698 women and 89,313 men from various political parties and independent candidates are in the fray.
Meanwhile, according to the EC, 390 local officials have been elected unopposed.
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