Nepal General Election 2017: Voting Concludes, Now It’s Counting Time

Nepal has finally completed its historic general elections on December 07, 2017 with millions of Nepali citizens exercising their votes, resulting in a 67 percent voter turnout.

Post the completion of first phase polls with 65 percent voter turnout on November 26, 2017, Nepal went on for the final phase of its most-awaited parliamentary and provincial polls across 15,344 polling centers in 45 districts.

A total of 4,482 candidates including 1,663 candidates for 128 parliamentary seats and 2,819 for 256 provincial assembly seats contested in the final phase that has involved around 12.1 million eligible voters, nearly 80% of the Nepali population.

This is the first election conducted for Nepali Parliament and Provincial Assembly after the new constitution was promulgated in 2015.

Public Response

All sections of Nepali society eagerly participated in Nepal’s 2017 provincial and parliamentary elections.

“I am voting after many years because there is new hope in the country with the establishment of provinces,” said Iswor Prasad Shrestha (70), a Nepali businessman.

Kedar Sharan Raya, a retired senior lawyer, said, “I am here to vote today because it is the first election for provinces with the hope these provincial governments will be able to deliver development.”

Election observers from foreign countries did not report any discrepancies in the electoral process.

It’s Counting Time!

The Election Commission (EC) of Nepal has promised to complete the vote counting process within two weeks from the day of election conclusion.

“Counting of votes of both parliamentary and provincial FPTP elections and both parliamentary and provincial Proportional Representation (PR) elections can begin together. We are confident that the counting could be completed, if there is no obstacle or setback within the set deadline,” says the Election Commissioner Ishwori Prasad Poudel.

 “Vote counting should be done at the earliest. Therefore, we have issued orders from center to all the vote counting centers,” reads a statement by the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Ayodhee Prasad Yadav, who said the First-Past-The-Post (FTFP) voting will be out in a week from the date of completion of election.