KATHMANDU, March 28: Counting of votes for the Free Students Union election at University Campus, Kirtipur began at 3:45 p.m. Saturday. Free Students´ Union Election Committee at University Campus, Kirtipur resumed vote counting as per the code of conduct signed among student unions before the elections. The counting began despite protest by Maoist-affiliated All Nepal National Independent Students´ Union-Revolutionary (ANNISU-R). [break]
ANNISU-R candidate for president, Himal Sharma, wrote a note of dissent and left the vote counting venue Saturday. Sharma walked out of the venue as some 300 votes cast in his union’s favor were declared invalid as per the existing code of conduct.
ANNISU-R had demanded new code of conduct as the students had agreed to declare tick marks that ran out of the box containing election symbol invalid.
However, student representatives of the ANNISU-R are present at the counting venue for what Sharma said ´to see if any further controversy arises during the counting.´
Organizing a brief press conference outside the counting venue in Kirtipur, Sharma claimed that the victory of ANNISU-R is almost certain.
"I have long been fighting for justice. I as a presidential candidate thought it not good to be a witness of injustice being put on us and decided to walk out of the counting process."
Sharma said that his union would not disrupt the vote counting process as mark of respect for the central campus of the oldest university in the country.
Asked if the ANNISU-R would accept the election results, Sharma said the issue of victory or defeat was never a concern in the dispute among rival student unions. "All we are saying is that we have been subjected to injustice by declaring over 300 of our votes invalid," he added.
Earlier in the afternoon, issuing a notice, coordinator of the seven-member Election Committee at the Campus, Dr Mahesh Raj Dahal, said they had decided to resume vote counting as per the existing code of conduct. The decision came after the Election Committee held negotiations with Central Election Monitoring Committee.
Altogether 7,793 students had cast their votes in the FSU election at the Central Campus nine days ago. Of them, about 2,500 votes were counted before the dispute erupted among the student unions on March 20.
The new election committee on March 22 was formed after the chief election commissioner Dr Krishna Chandra Sharma quit from the post, acknowledging technical errors while printing ballot paper. According to ANNISU-R, the ballot paper contains small box that has its election symbol as compared to rival student unions´, thereby making more of their votes invalid.
Related story
Vote count resumes after 4 hours in Dharan Sub-metropolitan Cit...
