KATHMANDU, March 10: Political parties that secure at least 3 percent of the total valid votes under the proportional representation (PR) system but fail to win any seat under the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system are still eligible to receive PR seats in the House of Representatives (HoR) elections held last Thursday.
According to Yagya Bhattarai, Joint Secretary of the Legal Division at the Election Commission (EC), a party must cross the 3 percent threshold in PR votes and win at least one FPTP seat to be recognized as a national party. However, parties that do not win an FPTP seat can still secure PR seats as long as they achieve the 3 percent minimum in PR votes.
“Parties need to obtain 3 percent of the total valid PR votes to be eligible for PR seats. But to be recognized as a national party, they must also win at least one FPTP seat while meeting the 3 percent threshold,” Bhattarai clarified.
Left alliance bags 116 FPTP seats
The rules regarding national party recognition and eligibility for PR seats are laid out in the House of Representatives Member Election Act, 2074 BS, and the Political Parties Act, 2073 BS. Section 60, Subsection (11) of the House of Representatives Member Election 2074 BS Act states that, notwithstanding anything else written elsewhere, only candidates from parties obtaining 3 percent or more of the total valid votes in the PR system shall be elected.
Section 52 of the Political Parties Act 2073 BS specifies that a party must secure at least 3 percent of votes in the PR system and at least one FPTP seat to be recognized as a national party.
This PR provision has already been applied in practice. In the 2079 provincial elections, the Hamar Nepali Party did not win any FPTP seat in the Bagmati Provincial Assembly but secured 1.5 percent of PR votes, earning it a PR seat. For provincial assemblies, the PR threshold is 1.5 percent, which allowed the party to benefit even without winning an FPTP seat.
According to the EC, a total of 9,615,568 votes were cast in the election. Parties like the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), Nepali Congress (NC), and CPN-UML are confirmed as national parties, as they are leading with more than 3 percent of PR votes. Parties such as the Shram Shakti Party and RSP are also likely to be recognized as national parties, having crossed the 3 percent threshold, although their final status will depend on the completion of vote counting.
Meanwhile, the EC has lifted the Code of Conduct that was in place for the recent election. The decision was made at a meeting on Monday, making the code non-applicable from midnight Monday. The code had originally been implemented on January 18 at midnight in preparation for the elections held last Thursday.
