KATHMANDU, Dec 1: Of the 143 political parties registered with the Election Commission (EC), as many as 23 have not applied to participate in the March 5 elections of the House of Representatives (HoR).
Only 120 parties will contest the polls, sharply higher from the 86 parties that competed in the November 2022 elections, when 116 parties were registered with the EC. The EC’s records show that all 14 parties represented in the dissolved lower house are contesting the upcoming vote.
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The EC said that the number marks the highest turnout of competing parties since the restoration of multiparty democracy, reflecting an extraordinary surge in political formations after the September 8 and 9 Gen Z– led protests that toppled the KP Sharma Oli government and led to the dissolution of the House.
Many of the new entrants emerged in the wake of the September demonstrations. Early registrants include the Gatisheel Loktantrik Party, led by sociologist Dinesh Prasai, and the Ujyalo Nepal Party, which has backing from Energy Minister Kulman Ghising. Several youth-driven groups—such as the Nawa Nirman Party and the Rastriya Gen Z Party Nepal—have also secured clearance.
The EC will finalize ballot symbols and party lists after completing verification on December 6. “Multiple parties have registered with us with the same election symbols and some of them are yet to fulfill criteria set by the EC. We will minutely check them and call parties to discuss their final symbols before exact numbers are finalised,” EC deputy spokesperson Kul Bahadur GC.
