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Only one organisation to 'observe' municipal polls

With less than a week to go for municipal elections, only one organisation has contacted the Election Commission (EC) to monitor the polls.

According to EC officials, four groups had applied for observing the polls, but only one, Volunteers for Peace, has actually been in contact with the commission while other three groups did not contact after filing applications.

The other three applicants were National Unity Youth Awareness Group, Nepal, Rural Women and Indigenous People Development Center and Chautari Nepal.

Responding to a query whether the elections would be fair without independent observers, spokesperson of the EC, Tejmuni Bajracharya, said “it does not need any certification from human rights groups saying the elections were held in a free and fair manner”. He said that despite repeated request by the commission, none of the human rights groups that had worked as observers in former elections, have applied for monitoring.

Bajracharya further said the foreign observers were not necessary in local elections, adding there were no foreign observers in previous elections as well.

On Saturday, the EC will provide permission to any organization applying for polls monitoring upon fulfilling the criteria, he informed.

Meanwhile, leading human rights groups have reiterated that they would denounce the observation of municipal polls being conducted by the royal government.

In an interaction programme organized by the Forum for Protection of Human Rights (FOPHUR), former justice of Supreme Court Laxman Prasad Aryal said that observation of municipal polls has no meaning when the state has been terrorising people to compel them to cast vote.

He further said the upcoming election would in no way be called 'genuine elections' - defined by the International Covenants of Civil and Political Rights – when it is conducted at the time sovereign rights of people have been snatched away. Aryal also made it a point to claim that the elections would not be free and fair because the EC has been working under pressure from the government.

Political analyst Prof Krishna Pokhrel said that general concept of election is to find solution to conflicts but, in Nepal’s case, the forthcoming elections are going to intensify the conflict.

Senior advocate Bishwa Kant Mainali said there would have been monitoring had the government created situation where major political parties could take part.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the NGO Federation Nepal and a number of other human rights groups have already declared not to observe the municipal elections but they would closely monitor the incidences of human rights violence during the polls. nepalnews.com ia Feb 02 06