KATHMANDU, June 8: The election campaign finance of political parties and candidates has increased in the recent elections, though the cost of government for election management has declined.
A review report stated that the Election Commission conducted the House of Representatives (HoR) on March 5 at a comparatively low cost. The review report stated that the per-voter cost was reduced in the March 5 elections.
According to the review report, the per-voter cost stood at Rs 264 in the latest elections. The EC officials stated that Rs 450 was spent per voter in the elections of the HoR and provincial assembly conducted in 2022.
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Spokesperson of EC Narayan Prasad Bhattarai said that the EC spent slightly more than Rs 4.96 billion in the recent election.
The EC had sought Rs 7.81 billion for the recent HoR elections, but the Finance Ministry had allocated only Rs 6.71 billion.
The total number of voters in the recent HoR elections was 18,903,689. Under the first-past-the-post electoral system, 11,168,032 voters used their sovereign franchise, and the valid vote was 94.55 percent.
Similarly, 11,280,817 voters cast their votes under the proportional electoral system with 96.05 percent of the valid vote.
In an average of both electoral systems, 4.7 percent votes were invalid, which was a low percentage point of the invalid votes compared to the past elections.
EC Spokesperson Bhattarai said that the EC used ballot boxes from its past stock and used the remaining papers of the past for ballot paper printing, while purchasing the election-related materials through the G2G model with other state-owned agencies to make the HoR elections cost-effective.
The EC got its ballot papers printed from Janak Education Material Centre Limited, Sajha Prakashan and bought other materials from the Food Management and Trading Company Limited.
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