Ensuring
Free, Fair Polls
THE Election Commission organised an interaction
programme in Kathmandu the other day with the objectives of soliciting suggestions for the
improvement in the process of preparation of electoral rolls and making electoral process
more effective and credible. As a part of its overall programme to collect suggestions
from the people, the Election Commission organised an interaction with the members of
parliament’s State Affairs Committee on the issues concerning reforms and improvement
in the voters’ list. Lately there has been complaints about the process of
preparation of electoral rolls and people and political parties have demanded improvement
in it. The Election Commission, the constitutional body to conduct elections for
parliament as well as local Abodies, has now initiated the work for the improvement in the
preparation of voters list. This initiative seeks to do away with some weaknesses in the
preparation of electoral rolls and check electoral frauds. Under this new system the names
of all including those who have not attained the age of 18 are to be included in the
voters list every time when the electoral rolls are updated. This makes the process of
preparation of electoral rolls accurate and checks election related frauds to a great
extent. Against this background, the initiatives taken by Election Commission for the
reforms and improvement in the voters’ list is, indeed, heartening. Free and fair
election is the essence of democracy. Democracy is the rule of people’s
representatives and people select their representatives by means of free and fair
election. At the absence of free and fair elections, people may not be able to choose
their genuine representatives, which is against the spirit of democratic polity. If
elections are not free and fair, people’s faith in democracy could erode and
democratic system could be weakened. Free and fair election is, thus, a must for the
empowerment of people and consolidation of democratic system of governance. But free and
fair election depends on several factors including preparation of electoral rolls. In
order to bring about reforms in electoral system, the first and foremost step should be
taken to improve the process of preparation of voters list. The Election Commission has
rightly initiated the process of bringing about improvement in the voters’ list which
requires full support and cooperation from all people and political parties that have
faith in multi-party democracy.
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