Periodic elections are the beauty of any democracy. By participating in elections, political parties renew their mandates with the people. Elections provide the people with an occasion to elect their representatives to rule the country. The main premise is that every political party worth its name respects the verdict of the people. Sovereign and supreme, the people decide whom they choose to form the government. In a democracy, the ultimate rulers of the country are voters, not the parties.
The conclusion of the CA elections has produced new political equations and given the parties new political mandates. In the voting under the first-the-past-post system, the Nepali Congress has emerged as the largest party, followed by the CPN-UML, with the UCPN-Maoist being pushed to the third position. The voting under the proportional representation system is likely to be similar to the FPTP. In all, the sizes of the regional and ethnic parties have been drastically cut, compared to 2008 elections. This indicates that Nepali voters are not comfortable with the agendas raised by these parties, who have exploited the sentiments of the people on regional and ethnic grounds, and have made their preference for a UNITED NEPAL very clear.
The election has been historical and has concluded peacefully, registering the highest ever voter turnout -- over 70 percent. Election monitoring and local election observers of the country including various international election observers eg UN , European Union and Carter Center have declared the election being ‘’ FREE AND FAIR ‘’.
The Election Commission and the government must be congratulated in this regard, as they have played a very important role in conducting the elections in a peaceful manner, especially considering the challenges they have faced.
The message sent out by the people, expressing each individual’s voice through their ballot, have a significant meaning: they clearly indicate what the people want and what the mandate of the winning candidates is. Now it is time the winners -- that is, the candidates and the parties forming the new government, to treat the mandate given by the people as a matter of the utmost priority.
Although all the electoral processes have completed peacefully, some political parties called for a boycott of vote counting. Initially, the UCPN-Maoist called all its representatives from the centres., along with Maoists, leaders of other political parties, including some candidates of Nepali Congress from Rukum, and CPN-UML candidates from Siraha, RPP candidate from Nuwakot also boycotted the elections saying that the elections were rigged. Some even locked up the vote counting booths. Such acts are disrespectful and underrate the ''people's mandate through voting''
If they are not satisfied with the electoral procedures, they can file legal cases. One must not disown and boycott the historical election. All must respect the supremacy of the voters and their legitimate votes which is a verdict of the people.
Politicians must learn to accept and respect the people’s verdict in good faith. We must learn to lose graciously and be humble in victory as part of a political culture. While defining defeat, it reminded me of these lines: You have three choices for defeat, you can either let it define you or you can let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you. Let us all be united for the cause of nation building.
The silent majority have now woken up. The people will not tolerate the same mistakes of the political parties again. Unity must be maintained among parties and inside the individual party which often have been fragmented for lust of power making country directionless and almost at the verge of a failed state. Hence considering the mandate of people as a prime goal Constitution must be written on time and all of the candidates and parties must focus on forging UNITY so as to build the Nation.
Yo Man Ta Mero Nepali Ho…
