Only Five Candidates Elected to Provincial Assembly from Gandaki Under Proportional Representation System

Pokhara. A total of 55 candidates from six political parties that crossed the threshold based on votes were included in the proportional representation closed list for Gandaki Province.

The CPN (Maoist Centre) had the highest number of candidates, 16, on the closed list. Similarly, 10 candidates were from the CPN-UML, 9 from the Nepali Congress, 8 from the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), and 6 each from the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) and the Shram Sanskriti Party. However, only 5 individuals have been elected as members of the provincial assembly from Gandaki. Two members are from RSP, and one each from the other three parties.

From RSP, only Ganga Chhantyal from Baglung and Eliza Gurung from Gorkha were selected. Both became members under the Indigenous Nationalities Women cluster. Padam Kumari Aryal from Syangja became a member from the CPN-UML under the Khas Arya Women quota. From the Nepali Congress, Renuka Kaucha from Baglung was selected under the Indigenous Nationalities quota, while from the CPN (Maoist Centre), only Balawati Sharma from Baglung became a member. She is a member under the Khas Arya Women cluster.

No member was elected from Gandaki under the RPP or the Shram Sanskriti Party. Interestingly, the highest number of elected proportional representation members are from Baglung district. Three members from different parties hail from Baglung. The addresses of the members elected from RSP, Nepali Congress, and CPN (Maoist Centre) are all in Baglung. The parties have submitted the list of elected members to the Election Commission. Although the names are finalized from the closed list, the respective parties retain the authority to make minor adjustments to some names based on the cluster.

When submitting the proportional representation closed list, the parties did not give much priority to Gandaki. Not a single proportional representation member has been elected from Kaski, which has three constituencies. There are no members from Tanahun and Nawalpur, which have two constituencies each. While many members are elected from a single district in other provinces, parties have placed districts in Gandaki at a lower priority during candidate selection. In the provincial direct elections, RSP won 15 out of 18 seats.

The Nepali Congress won 2 seats, and one was won by an independent candidate. Under proportional representation, RSP received 525,635 votes in Gandaki. Nepali Congress received 207,387 votes, CPN-UML received 152,187 votes, and CPN (Maoist Centre) received 57,876 votes. RPP received 23,557 votes, and Shram Sanskriti received 18,995 votes.

Based on the vote count, RSP should have secured around 6 members in Gandaki. Nepali Congress should have been allocated at least 2 seats but only drew one from proportional representation. CPN-UML should also have given about 2 seats to Gandaki but provided only one.