Kathmandu, August 21 (PTI): Nepal will hold parliamentary and provincial elections on November 26, the government announced today, a key step towards cementing democracy in the politically unstable country.
The decision was taken during a Cabinet meeting held this morning here, according to officials.
“The government took the decision to conduct the elections after holding consultations with the Election Commission (EC),” Minister for Information Mohan Bahadur Basnet told reporters.
The EC will work out the details of the elections.
As per the constitutional provision, the Nepalese Parliament will have 275 members.
While voters will directly vote for 165 lawmakers, 110 members of Parliament will be nominated through proportional representation.
Earlier, the EC had urged the government to conduct elections in two phases, saying that it would be difficult to conduct both the elections at once due to time constraint, lack of laws and human resources as well as logistic.
The announcement for holding the polls came nearly two months after Nepal conducted the second round of local-level polls across the country.
The EC had been preparing to hold federal and provincial elections in 31 mountainous and hilly districts.
Millions of Nepalese voted in the first two phases of local-level polls held in almost two decades as the Himalayan nation takes a key step towards cementing democracy.
Nepal has witnessed political instability.
The country has been in a political crisis since a decade-long Maoist conflict ended in 2006 and the monarchy was abolished.
Some Madhes-centric parties were opposed the elections on the ground that the new Constitution be amended to accommodate their views: more representation in the Parliament and redrawing of provincial boundaries.
Madhesis, who are mostly of Indian origin, had launched a prolonged agitation between September 2015 and February last year against the implementation of the Constitution.
