Although the parties expressed flexibility on several contentious issues during the talks, the government is finding it difficult to address the demands especially by the fringe parties to keep the ratio between the seats allocated for first-past-the-post (FPTP) and proportional representation (PR) same as in the former CA. Also they have expressed serious reservations over the proposed provision on 1 percent of the total vote as eligibility threshold for PR seats. [break]
“The government has finished holding meetings with various parties. The suggestions given by all the parties are being reviewed now to take a decision on the contentious issues to forward the ordinance to President´s Office,” said a source at the Office of the Chairman of Interim Election Council.
Sources said the government is mulling over announcing election date only after settling the contentious issues of the election-related ordinance. “How early the issue of threshold and seats for the proportional electoral system could be resolved will decide the time for announcing the election date,” the source further said.
Addressing a function in the capital Saturday, Chairman of the Interim Election Council Khil Raj Regmi said the government was desperate to announce the election date. Likewise, senior UCPN (Maoist) leader Krishna Bahadur Mahara in a press conference at Gaighat, Udayapur, also claimed that election date would be announced within two days.
The remarks by Regmi and Mahara come in the wake of the High Level Political Committee (HLPC) meeting on Friday deciding to hold talks with the agitating parties within the next three days to bring them onboard the election process. As CPN-UML Chairman Jhalanath Khanal, who heads the HLPC, was out of Kathmandu Valley for attending a party function, talks between the big parties and the agitating parties could not be held on Saturday.
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