The parliamentary committee summoned Local Development Minister Top Bahadur Rayamajhi on Thursday and directed him to make preparations for the local elections, saying the Rs 44 billion allocated to the local bodies could be misappropriated in absence of elected representatives. [break]
“We issued the directive concluding that holding the local elections is the best possible option for managing the transitional phase without hampering the task of concluding the peace process and drafting the new constitution,” committee Chairman Jitendra Sonal told Republica.
Asked if a deadline has been set for the elections, Sonal said, “We directed the local development ministry to make preparations for the elections after May 29.”
Committee members said there is high possibility of budget misappropriation as the all-party mechanism running the local bodies have already been dissolved.
The ministry on January 4 dissolved the all-party mechanism, following a directive from the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) that found the mechanism plagued with rampant anomalies.
The lawmakers also said at the meeting that they want the election date fixed before May 29, the date for the expiry of the Constituent Assembly (CA)´s term. They, however, said they were for holding elections after the expiry of CA term so that the elections would not distract the political parties from the more important tasks of peace and constitution writing.
Meanwhile, the ministry has come up with five alternatives for running the local bodies until the elections are held. According to a highly placed source involved in charting the alternatives, the first alternative is about giving the post of coordinator in the local body to the party that garnered the largest number of CA seats under direct election.
Likewise, the second largest party would get the post of vice-coordinator. Other parties will get their share of representation in the local bodies depending on the percentage of votes garnered in the CA polls. As per the proposal, the mechanism at the district level should not comprise more than nine and not more than five members at village level.
The second proposal is about giving representation to only a single candidate from the party that bagged less than five percent of the votes cast in the CA polls.
Likewise, for the parties that garnered more than five percent votes, the number of votes would be divided by five to determine the strength of a council. The council will then elect members for representation in the local body.
As per the third alternative, a council would be formed by accommodating members from the political parties in proportion to their respective strengths in the CA. The council would take policy-level decisions and the Local Development Officer would implement them.
Likewise, as per the fourth proposal, the ministry has proposed a mechanism comprising chiefs of education, health, agriculture offices and finance comptroller at the district level to run the local bodies. Under this setup, the political parties will have no representation.
Under the fifth proposal, the local development ministry has proposed to reinstate the dissolved all-party mechanism by determining its duty, responsibility and jurisdiction.
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