Ram Chandra ahead of Subas by 11 thousand votes, see Arithmetic

KATHMANDU: The third president of the country will face off against two former speakers for the country’s fourth term.

Eight parties, including the Nepali Congress, have nominated senior Congress leader and former speaker Ram Chandra Paudel for president, while the CPN-UML has nominated former speaker and Constituent Assembly Chair Subas Chandra Nemwang.

Both the presidential candidates reached the Election Officer’s office in Parliament House New Baneshwor on Saturday and registered their nominations. Voting to elect the president will be held on Feb 25.

Paudel, who has been nominated by eight parties including the Congress, has the main support of the government’s leadership party, the CPN-Maoist Centre.

Similarly, Paudel has been associated with the CPN-S, JSP, LSP, Janamat Party, NUP and Rastriya Janamorcha.

Similarly, no other political parties have expressed support for UML candidate Nemwang.

However, according to the agreement reached on Dec 25, UML leaders expect Maoist center support in the presidential election.

Sher Bahadur Deuba, Madhav Kumar Nepal, Narayan Kaji Shrestha, Ashok Kumar Rai, and Abdul Khan are the proposers of Poudel, who became a candidate for president from the Congress. Mahant Thakur, Purna Bahadur Khadka, Ranjita Shrestha, Chitra Bahadur KC, and Hitraj Pandey are also supporters.

The proponents of UML candidate Nemwang are KP Sharma Oli, Prithvi Subba Gurung, Gokarnaraj Bista, Raghuveer Mahaseth and Chabi Lal BK while the supporters are Yogesh Bhattarai, Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, Julikumari Mahato Mahaseth, Dilkumari Rawal Thapa and Aman Kumar Maskey.

Paudel served as speaker from 18 Dec, 1994 to 23 March , 1999, and was supported by eight parties, including the Congress. Similarly, Nemwang was elected Speaker of Parliament during his first term, which lasted from 27 July, 2008
to 27 May , 2012.

Nemwang was elected Speaker for the second time, from 18 Feb, 2014 to 14 Oct, 2015. Following the election of the Constituent Assembly, Nemwang served as chair of both the Constituent Assembly.

The current President, Bidya Devi Bhandari, will leave office on March 11. On 12 March, 2018, she was elected President of the United States.

Old vote

The Election Commission is going to conduct the presidential election on March 9 based on the vote count of the 2074 presidential election. In the year 2074, the vote share of the federal parliament was 79 and the vote share of the provincial parliament remained at 48.

According to the Schedule of the Act on the Election of the President and Vice President, the number obtained by dividing the total population of the country by the total number of federal parliamentarians and dividing it by 1,000 is the vote share of one federal parliamentarian.

The voting weight of the members of the State Assembly is also determined by this process.

The commission is going to hold the presidential election from the old vote count as the final details of the census completed in 2078 have not been officially released.

Based on the population of 2068, in the presidential and vice-presidential elections of 2074, the vote share of the federal parliament was 79 and the vote share of the state parliament was 48.

Now, due to the fact that the official data of the census completed in 2078 has not been made public, the situation has arisen that the presidential and vice-presidential elections have to be held on the same basis.

How many votes of which party?

According to the final list issued by the election officer’s office, 882 people will be able to vote in the presidential election. In which there will be 550 state assembly members and 332 federal parliamentarians. Two of the 334 federal MPs will not participate in the voting. Rabi Lamichhane’s constituency is vacant in Chitwan 2, while Congress MP Tek Bahadur Gurung is suspended.

According to Section 54 of the Presidential and Vice Presidential Elections Act, 2074, the vote share of the federal MP is 79 and the vote share of the State Assembly MP is 48.

In this way, if the number of MPs in the Federal Parliament is 332 and 79, it comes to 26 thousand 228 votes.

Similarly, 48 of the 550 members of the State Assembly comes to 26,400. In this way, the total number of votes in the presidential election is 52,628. Out of these, the candidate who gets the majority will win the presidency.

Vote share of eight parties supporting Congress

Nepali Congress – 16,142
CPN Maoist Centre – 7,649
CPN Unified Samajwadi – 2,574
Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) – 2,145
Loktantrik Samajbadi Party (LSP) – 971
Janamat – 1,242
Nagarik Unmukti – 892
Rastriya Janamorcha – 206

When eight parties cast their votes for the Congress candidate, 31 thousand 821 votes are cast.

Which other party has how much?

CPN UML – 15,281
Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – 1,501
Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) – 2,450
Nepal Workers Peasants Party (NWPA) – 223
Federal Socialists – 48
Hamro Nepali Party – 96
Independents – 813

Nominated – 237

Apart from those eight parties, the votes with others are 20,649.