The EC had given 30 days (which expired Tuesday) to file applications in order to obtain permission for carrying out election observation work.[break]
According to Chief Election Commissioner Neel Kantha Uprety, two international organizations, the Carter Center and Thailand-based Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) have applied for election observation.
In its application, the Carter Center has said it will deploy 85 election observers while ANFREL has stated to field 54 observers.
Election Commissioner Ram Bhakta PB Thakur, who also heads the election observation committee at the EC, said that 52 national election observer organizations have proposed to field over 74,000 observers.
Thakur said that the commission has officially invited the chief election commissioners of SAARC member countries, and Australia, Thailand and South Korea for visit during the CA election.
During the last CA elections held in 2008, altogether 148 national observer groups had deployed 60,000 observers while 30 international organizations had fielded 890 election observers.
Asked about the reason behind the fall in the number of observer groups this time, Thakur said, “It is because many observer groups have teamed up to form alliances, and the EC has also introduced new criteria in its bid to enhance the quality of election observation.”
The chief election commissioner maintained that though 52 national groups have filed applications for poll observation, the number of groups could decrease as many may not meet the new criteria.
He maintained that EC will allow only those national groups that will be able to send at least 100 election observers to 100 polling locations representing five development regions from the Hills, Mountains and the Tarai.
According to him, an election observer must hold at least a bachelor´s degree and should have previous experience of poll observations. Also, an election observer must not be member of any political party, as per the new criteria set by the commission.
Commissioner Thakur said that observer groups must submit their preliminary report within 30 days of the election and final report within 90 days.
He said that EC will begin to study the documents submitted by the observer groups from Wednesday.
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