The constitutional body on Monday sent a letter to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA), which is responsible for managing poll security, stating that the ministry can proceed with recruiting temporary security personnel for the CA poll scheduled for November 19. [break]
EC officials have been stating that as past experience and suggestions from both national and international election observers show, temporary security personnel are undesirable for holding free and fair elections.
The EC gave its consent a day after top MoHA officials held discussions with EC commissioners, including the chief election commissioner.
Asked how come the commission has agreed to deploy temporary security personnel whereas earlier it was not in favor of doing so, Chief Election Commissioner Neel Kantha Uprety told Republica, “The commission gave its consent after the government assured us that past weaknesses would not be repeated this time.”
He maintained that they agreed to the deployment of temporary security personnel also after being assured that the move would not harm the credibility, fairness and independence of the election.
The chief election commissioner said temporary security personnel will be chosen this time through a rigorous selection process. “Experience and age group, among other things, will be taken into consideration while recruiting temporary security personnel for the forthcoming CA election,” Uprety added.
Election Commissioner Dolakh Bahadur Gurung, who heads the security coordination committee at the EC, said the government will give priority to those who have worked previously with the Nepal Police, Armed Police Force (APF) or the Nepal Army (NA).
Uprety informed that those who applied in the past for election security work but failed at the last stage, even after being found physically fit during several tests, will be hired as temporary hands for election security this time.
Asked about the number of temporary security personnel to be hired, Commissioner Gurung said, “They [government] did not ask our consent for this or that number of temporary security personnel,” adding, “But the number will be below 50,000.”
Earlier, MoHA had proposed to the EC to hire 70,000 to 72,000 temporary hands for poll security. Responding to a query about the reduction in the number of temporary hands to be hired, Uprety said, “This is because the number of polling booths for the new CA election will be fewer compared to the last CA election and also the strength of the Nepal Police has increased recently.”
According to security officials, over 100,000 security personnel are required for the polls. Nepal Police has said that it can deploy only 54,000 personnel for poll security, while the APF can field 22,000 personnel.
The EC will set up 18,412 polling booths, which is fewer by 2,478 as compared to the last CA election.
Asked about the number of security personnel at each polling booth, the chief election commissioner said he cannot comment on this as the government is yet to present an integrated security plan before the EC.
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