EC asks parties to list 50pc women seats under PR poll system

KATHMANDU, DEC 13 -
The Election Commission (EC) on Thursday urged all the 30 parties winning seats under the proportional representation (PR) to award at least 50 percent of the seats to women.

Officials at the EC said their request for the parties to make up for the loss of women candidates in the direct election system was aimed at ensuring 33 percent representation of women in the new Constituent Assembly.

Of the total 240 lawmakers elected under the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, only 10 are women. In 2008, women bagged 30 seats under the FPTP, while the overall

representation of women in the CA was 33 percent after the parties appointed 168 women in PR seats.

This time, if the parties book 168 of the 335 PR seats for women as urged by the EC, an additional 20 seats will have to be allocated for the fairer sex from the 26 seats to be nominated by the Cabinet. However, the EC call is unlikely to be followed by the parties, given the legal ambiguities. Though the election law has a provision of electing 50 percent women candidates under the PR system, some clauses of the Act state that the EC could accept the name list even if it fails to meet the requirement on women’s representation by 5 to 10 percent.

“We have made a special request to the parties this time,” Election Commissioner Ayodhee Prasad Yadav said.

So far, only 11 of the 30 parties have submitted the list of candidates for the PR seats. While the major parties, including the NC, CPN-UML and the UCPN (Maoist), are likely to meet the 33 percent mark in their lists, other smaller parties are not very sure.

The election law has it that the parties who have fielded candidates for less than 30 percent of the total 575 seats get a waiver from the provision of ensuring 50 percent women’s representation in the PR category. There are 11 parties which have secured only one seat each and they are unlikely to ensure women’s representation, said Yadav.

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