Carter Center terms election 'well-conducted'

Kathmandu, Dec. 9: The Carter Center Saturday said that despite political tension as well as logistical and operational challenges, the voting process in Nepal 2017 federal and provincial elections has been well-conducted.

About 97 per cent observation assessed as ‘very good’ and ‘good’, said Dr. Surakiart Sathirathai, co-leader of the delegation and former Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Thailand, said at a press conference organised to release a preliminary statement about the election observation.

He said that the voters turn out was ‘quite impressive’.

According to him, voting was conducted in a peaceful, orderly manner, although ongoing violence occasioned a heavy security presence at all polling locations. Some issues were observed in assuring the secrecy of the vote, family voting, and improper assisted voting, but these cases were relatively isolated.

Observers reported that party and candidate agents were present in 97 percent of polling centers visited, and domestic observers were active in 32 percent of those centers.

“If the remaining stages of the process are completed successfully and transparently, the election will be a positive step in implementing the country’s new constitution and consolidating its political transition,” said DR. Sathirathai.

But, the center has expressed serious concerns at the poor implementation of election Code of Conduct during the election campaign.

Most of the candidates spend much higher than the ceiling set by the Election Commission of Nepal (ECN) while there was also excessive use of state resources which should have been monitored, said Carlos Valenzuela, Field Office Director of the Center’s International Election Observation Mission in Nepal.

He said that the ECN could have enforced the code more vigorously.

“It will be better if the ECN could make the Code of Conduct more campaign friendly for the political parties,” he said.

Another co-leader of the delegation Peter Burleigh, former US Ambassador and Center’s Democracy Programme Director, commended Nepal’s voting process.

The Carter Center observed both phases of Nepal’s election.

On Phase 1 Election Day, 16 observers visited 68 polling centers in the six provinces where voting took place.

For Phase 2 polling, a total of 64 observers from 34 countries were mobilized across all seven provinces, visiting 214 polling centers. In total, the Center observed election-day procedures in 32 districts and 282 polling centers.

The Carter Center commended the authorities, particularly the ECN, for organizing the elections within the constitutional deadline despite political tensions, logistical and operational challenges, and tight timelines.

It further commended the ECN for its efforts to ensure that as many citizens as possible were registered before the elections were called, allowing close to 1.4 million additional registrations.

However, the Center said, the fact that hundreds of thousands of polling staff and security personnel were unable to exercise their right to vote is a significant issue and not in accordance with previous Nepali practice or with international standards.