By Rudra Raj Koirala, TON Nepal

Total of 84 parties have applied at the Election Commission seeking its approval to contest the upcoming general elections to be held on November 20 for the House of Representatives and seven provincial assemblies onward. Political parties that have previously been listed at the Election Commission requisite to register again every time ahead of elections. So far as many as 79 parties had got approval to contest the local elections.

The election commission has received applications from 80 parties to contest the elections for the House of Representatives and provincial assemblies. The election commission will issue the list of qualified parties after going through their applications. Eighty-eight political parties had applied at the Election Commission to contest the federal and provincial elections in 2017.

The commission will call the parties to submit the needed document if they are unfinished before granting them permission. Tuesday was the last day for parties to list at the commission for general and provincial elections.

On July 5, the commission had asked political parties wishing to contest the November elections to get listed from July 7 until Tuesday. The commission also sought applications from the parties that are planning to contest under a single election symbol. Twelve parties have formed four groups to contest the elections under four different election symbols.

Section 49 of the Act Related to Political Parties says two or more than two parties willing to contest under the same election symbol can apply jointly at the commission. There shall be only one parliamentary party led by the party winning the highest numbers of seats, according to the Act.

On Tuesday CPN (Maoist Centre) and Nepal Samajbadi Party applied to contest under the same election symbol. The Baburam Bhattarai-led Nepal Samajbadi Party will contest under the “hammer and sickle within a circle”, the symbol belonging to the Maoist Centre.

On February 17 Bhattarai’s party had sought its election symbol when it was registered at the commission Bhattarai had contested the 2017 elections with the same eye symbol from the Naya Shakti Party and won from Gorkha-2. However, the party has now decided to contest under the election symbol of the Maoist Centre. The seat-sharing, however, is yet to be decided.

Nepal Communist Party Unity National Campaign, too has reached an agreement with the Maoist Centre to contest the elections under the Maoist symbol. However, the party didn’t apply for a common election symbol.

On July 28, Nepal Communist Party Unity had registered his party just a week earlier the government announced the election dates. All the lawmakers who won from Bhattarai’s and Nepal Communist party unity parties will have to follow the whip of the Maoist Centre.

Similarly, other parties too have decided to contest the polls under a single symbol. Samajbadi Kendra Nepal, Adhunik Nepal Samajabadi Party and Nepal Communist Party Rastrabadi too will contest under a single symbol. Samajadi Ekta Party, Nepal Communist Party Samajbadi and Nepal Dalit Party too are contesting under one symbol. The other parties contesting under one symbol are Nepal Aama Party, Nepal Janabadi Party, Nepal Sachet Party and Nepal Sushan Party.

The commission will start the election process once the party registration process completes. As per the election schedule declared by the commission, it will assign the election symbol for proportional representation on August 31.

Similarly, the parties will have to submit the closed list of candidates under the proportional representation on September 18 and 19. The final list of the candidates under the category will be issued on October 8. The commission is preparing to start the election process for the first-past-the-post system from October 9.

From the 2017 elections, five parties were awarded national party status. Any party that wins at least one seat under the first-past-the-post system and has a minimum of three percent seats under proportional representation system qualifies as national party.

Currently six parties are national parties in Parliament along with the UML (98), the Nepali Congress (61), and Maoist Centre (49), CPN (Unified Socialist) (23), Janata Samajbadi Party (19) and Loktantrik Samajbadi Party (13) too are national parties. However, it is yet to see that either the alliance would give these parties any benefit or not and who will be the major beneficiary of these alliances.