Election has institutionalized democracy: CEC Thapaliya

KATHMANDU: Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya has said the election to the Member of House of Representatives (HoR) and State Assembly (SA) has contributed to institutionalizing the federal republic along with the selection of people’s representatives.

Inaugurating the Bagmati State-level election review program at Dolakha today, he said the review program will provide guidance as to making the elections more systematic in the coming days.

The Chief Election Commissioner stressed that an election is won on the basis of principles, integrity and ideology.

“Suggestions were collected through consultations at the rural municipality level for making the voter list unblemished.

We believe that the voter roll was flawless,” he said, adding that if there are any errors in the voter list, you yourself are responsible for that.

I do not believe in the conjectures that the names of dead people were included in the voter list and votes were cast in their names in Dolakha. If that is the case, please explain how it happened and express the reality here, CEC Thapaliya said on the occasion.

Election Commission Under-Secretary Kamal Gyawali had made a presentation on the election-related data, good practices, problems and challenges during the Nov 20 election.

The Chief Election Officer, the Chief District Officer, chiefs of the district-based security bodies and the stakeholders were present in the review program.

Group discussions will be held on the voter list, the voting process, human resources, election materials management, monitoring, election laws, monitoring of social sites, voter education, election observation, information technology use, and gender inclusion, among other topics.