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VOL. 27, NO. 33, May 02, 2008 (Baishakh 20 2065 B.S.)
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Final Tally
The final tally shows Maoists as the largest party, MJF is a surprise winner staking fourth position
By Sanjaya Dhakal
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Workers of political parites: Anxious lot |
After the Election Commission (EC) allocated seats under the Proportional Representation (PR) voting category, the final tally of the April 10 Constituent Assembly election has emerged.
Maoists have emerged as the single largest party – but feeling much short of even simple majority. Nepali Congress (NC) and Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) are in distant second and third positions.
In a surprising result, the newly floated Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF), which had spearheaded the Madhes agitation, has come out strongly in its very first electoral exercise.
Likewise, two other Madhes-based parties, the Terai Madhes Loktantrik Party (TMLP) and Sadbhavana Party led by Rajendra Mahato have also won considerable number of seats.
According to the EC, 54 parties had taken part in the election of the Constituent Assembly members under the Proportional Representation system.
On the basis of the proportion of the total valid votes, 25 different political parties (according to the formula for allotting the seats of the counting votes) have garnered seats. The commission has also issued directives to the political parties to submit the name lists of those candidates (within the closed lists) after having decided from their central committee meeting.
Out of 11146540 votes that had been cast under the PR, the number of valid votes was 10739078 and the number of invalid votes was 407462. The polling percentage under the PR was over 63.
Under the PR category, Maoists have got 100 seats, Nepali Congress 73 seats and the UML 70 seats. Likewise, with 22 seats Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF) has retained the fourth position in PR system also. Two other Terai-based parties - Terai Madhesh Loktantrik Party (TMLP) and Sadbhawana Party (SP) bagged 11 and five seats respectively. Similarly, CPN (Marxist Leninist) which failed to win a single constituency in first-past-the-post system also got eight PR seats.
Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal, which advocated constitutional monarchy, claimed only four seats while Rastriya Prajatantra Party bagged eight seats and Rastriya Janashakti Party (RJP) led by former Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa got two seats. None of the three parties won seats in FPTP election. Two dozen small parties that could not win a single seat in FPTP election have benefited from the PR system.
As per the actual votes bagged by the parties, the Maoists had led the tally with 31,44,202 votes out of the total 1,07,39,088 votes cast. This is equal to 29.27 percent of vote share. NC and the UML, respectively, bagged 22,69,863 (21 percent) and 21,83,370 votes (20.33 percent).
The MJF and TMLP, respectively, pocketed 678,327 (6.31 percent) and 338,930 votes (3.15 percent). Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) is in sixth position with 2 63,431 votes.
With the final tally now known, the parties will need to select the allocated number of candidates (under PR) by fulfilling the quota provisions and submit the same to the EC within this week. That will lay the ground for the formation of the new government, which would then nominate 26 remaining CA members. The total number of CA members in 601.
