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DHANGADHI: There will be zero representation of women in the Sudurpaschim Province Assembly under the first past the post (FPTP) system.
Though political parties had fielded 12 female candidates in 12 seats under the FPTP system, none of them won the election.
As per the final counting results published by the Election Commission, Nepali Congress (NC) has won 12 seats in the province. CPN (Maoist Center) is at second with eight seats, while Nagarik Unmukti Party is in the third position with five seats. CPN-UML and CPN (Unified Socialist) have won three seats each, while the independent candidate was victorious in one seat.
The constitution has guaranteed at least 33% female representation in the province assembly. This means, at least 17 women will be elected to the province assembly under proportional representation (PR) system. Sudurpashchim Province Assembly has 53 seats – 32 FPTP and 21 PR seats.
Of the 21 PR seats, NC and UML will get an estimated seven seats each, while Maoist Center and Nagarik Unmukti will get three and two seats, respectively. Likewise, Unified Socialist and Rastriya Prajatantra Party will get one each.
The constitution has guaranteed at least 33% female representation in the province assembly.
Parties must select the province assembly members under PR system from different clusters like Khas Arya (60.02%), Dalit (17.29%), Tharu (17.21%), Indigenous Nationalities (3.61%), Madhesi (1.64%) and Muslim (0.23%). Likewise, 2.37% of the province assembly members must be from marginalized communities and 12.78% from backward regions.
As per the closed list of candidates submitted by the parties to the Election Commission, Madhu Bharati, Saraswati Khadka, Dammari Mahara, Junakumari Dani, Lalita Sunar, Gita Kumari Chaudhary and Dhan Bahadur Budha are likely to be elected from Nepali Congress
Similarly, Santosh Kumari Sharma, Janaki Bam, Radhika Bhujel, Rajendra Singh Rawal, Bharat Saud, Hiara Sarki and Kuldip Chaudhary could be elected from CPN-UML. Maoist Center, on the other hand, is likely to send Gitadevi Mal, Janakidevi Kunwar and Laxmi BK, while Tika Thapa and Indira Giri could represent Nagarik Unmukti Party in the province assembly. Purna Bahadur Chand of RPP is also likely to be elected.
Two new parties
Two new parties will be making an entry to the Sudurpashchim Province Assembly for the 2022-2027 term.
Nagarik Unmukti Party and RPP are entering the province assembly, while Janata Samajbadi Party and Loktantrik Samajbadi Party are exiting owing to their failure to cross the threshold of PR votes.
This means the number of parties represented in the province assembly will remain six like in the previous term.
In the first province assembly formed after the 2017 election, there were four parties initially. However, the number increased to six due to the splits of Rastriya Janata Party and CPN-UML.
