Four parties denied provinical seats despite crossing threshold

KATHMANDU: Four parties in two provinces couldn’t become eligible for seats under the proportional representation (PR) system despite crossing the threshold of votes.

Nepal Workers and Peasants Party (NWPP) in Karnali Province, and CPN (Unified Socialist), Hamro Nepal Party and Rastriya Jana Morcha (RJM) in Gandaki Province all met the 1.5% vote requirements. But since the total votes they received is lower than the per-seat weightage, their candidates couldn’t be elected under PR system.

NWPP got 1.59% of total votes cast in Karnali which was lower than the per-seat weightage of 4.47%.

Similarly, total votes received by Hamro Nepal Party (1.99%), Unified Socialist (1.6%) and RJM (1.58%) were lower than the per seat weightage of 3.5% in Gandaki Province, according to EC Spokesperson Shaligram Sharma.

In the federal parliament, however, all the parties crossing the 3% votes were eligible for representation under the PR system.