According to Officiating Chief Election Commissioner Neel Kantha Uprety, the first round of the multi-million dollar voter registration program will be completed by June 2011. The estimated cost of the program is US $ 30 million. [break]
“The voter registration process with the voter´s photograph and fingerprint was initiated by the EC in September and it is now to go into full-fledged implementation following the SC´s ruling,” informed Uprety, adding, “The program is aiming to complete the first round by June, during which the particulars of about 10 million eligible voters will be collected and registered.”
The EC´s much hyped project was badly affected for the last six months following the Madhes-based parties´ objection to voter registration on the basis of citizenship certificates alone.
Ending a long-standing dispute over whether to make citizenship documents mandatory for voter registration, the SC on Monday issued its ruling, paving the way for the EC to register voters only on the basis of their citizenship certificates.
According to Acting Chief Election Commissioner Uprety, preparations for launching the countrywide registration program are almost complete.
“Since this is a continuous process of registration, we would like to express our commitment to register all eligible voters for the next election. The registration process will remain open round the year,” Uprety added.
According to officials at the EC, some 91,000 employees will be trained and deployed for the voter registration.
“Voters who have migrated internally and those currently not in the country will be given special attention in the registration process, he said, adding, “Any eligible Nepali citizen who has received the citizenship certificate should worry about registration in the electoral roll because we will keep our district offices open for registration round the year.”
According to the EC, 4,000 laptops will be used for the process at 10,000 locations.
Following mounting pressure from Madhes-based parties, the EC on November 3 took a decision to accept documents issued by academic institutions and land ownership certificates, among others, stating that this was within the ambit of existing laws.
The SC ruling states that documents other than citizenship can be used for verification of citizenship but must not be accepted for voter registration itself.
“Other documents like land ownership papers, ID cards or academic certificates can be used to verify the authenticity of citizenship if that appears suspicious,” the ruling reads.
The Madhes-based parties´ demand to include in the voter registration list the names of those living in Nepal for a long time has also been rejected by the SC.
“All confusion regarding citizenship evidence during voter registration is now over,” said Uprety, adding, “We will implement the program countrywide without delay.”
According to the EC, it will immediately implement the registration process in hundreds of Village Development Committees in 43 districts.
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