Kathmandu, March 9 Nepal's Election Commission began counting votes shortly after the general elections concluded on March 5. However, it took almost four days to complete the process under the direct voting system and five days for the proportional system.
The House of Representatives (HoR) in Nepal has a total of 275 seats. While 165 members are elected through the First Past The Post (FPTP) or direct voting system, 110 members are elected through proportional representation.
Although around 18.9 million voters were eligible to participate in the election held on March 5, the voter turnout was 60 per cent. Every voter casts two ballots – one for the direct voting system and the second for the proportional representation.
"We have to count the ballot papers manually, unlike in those places, where electronic voting is practised," said Sita Pun, deputy spokesperson of the Election Commission.
During vote counting, each ballot paper has to be shown to all the representatives of political parties, before making the final decision, she added.
Election Commission spokesperson Narayan Prasad Bhattarai said that all the vote counting under the first past the post (FPTP) will conclude by Monday night, and the proportionate vote counting will conclude by Tuesday night.
When asked about the delay in the counting, Bhattarai said that due to bad weather in the mountain regions of the country on the next day, helicopters could not land to carry ballot papers, which was one of the reasons for the slow counting.
He, however, said that the counting was fast this time as compared to the past. In some cases, the delay was caused by disputes among the representatives of different political parties.
Where there is tough competition among candidates, disputes over counting are most likely, he added.
In some cases, the size of the ballot paper also matters. In some constituencies, the ballot paper has just 10-12 election symbols, whereas in other cases there are up to 45 symbols, which makes a difference, Bhattarai said.
So far, the results for 161 of the 165 seats have been declared under direct voting. The outcome on the remaining four seats is expected to be declared soon.
Under proportionate voting, the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) has secured 4049,604 votes, followed by the NC at 13,60,281, the CPN-UML 1150,679, the NCP 591,940, the Shram Sanskriti Party 291,965, the Janata Samajwadi Party 1,16,463 and the Rastriya Parivartan Party 276,931.
With more than 40 lakh votes under the proportional representation system, the RSP is expected to secure at least 40 additional seats, taking its tally to around 164 seats in the 275-member House of Representatives, which is well above the 138 needed for a simple majority, political observers said.
Nepal is set to witness its first Madhesi prime minister -- Balendra Shah -- who will also be the youngest elected executive head in the history of the Himalayan country.