KATHMANDU, MARCH 15

The Election Commission's decision to put a ceiling on poll expenditure for candidates vying for top posts in municipalities and rural municipalities has drawn flak from civil society members.

Former president of Transparency International Nepal Khemraj Regmi said that the poll expenditure ceiling was unrealistic and candidates could easily flout election code of conduct and submit fake expenditure details.

'The EC set the same expenditure ceiling that applied in the last local polls held five years ago. In the last five years inflation has risen, but the EC has fixed the same poll expenditure cap,' Regmi said. He added that honest candidates vying for the post of mayor or deputy mayor would need between Rs 20 to 25 lakh for their poll campaign.

'The EC fixed this unrealistic ceiling without putting in place a robust mechanism to control poll expenditure. This decision will encourage candidates to submit fake details of their spending,' Regmi argued. He said parties needed to give tickets to honest leaders with fairly long association with party politics. 'When parties sell tickets to business persons, contractors, or tax evaders, corruption seeps in the poll process.

A corrupt candidate can spend any amount of money and try to recoup it after election,' Regmi added.

Former chief election commissioner Neel Kantha Uprety said if candidates did not use money and coercion to win election, the current ceiling might be enough, but everybody knew that candidates were spending huge sums to win elections.

'Mayoral candidates spend up to Rs 50 million on election campaign,' Uprety said. He added that the current system was faulty and state agencies could not control candidates who were using money to influence election outcome in their favour.

He said if political parties were forced to receive donations only through the banking system that could check corruption in elections to some extent.

Prof Kapil Shrestha said capping poll expenditure at Rs 7.5 lakh was tantamount to encouraging candidates to produce fake bills.

'The Election Commission should know how elections are contested these days,' he added.

Shrestha said although parties never say how much they spent during elections, it was a fact that post-1990, poll campaign had become an expensive affair.

The EC has put a Rs 7.5-lakh ceiling on poll expenditure for a candidate vying for the post of mayor or deputy mayor of a metropolitan city. It has also put a Rs 5.5-lakh expenditure ceiling for those vying for posts of mayor and deputy mayor of sub-metropolitan cities.

A version of this article appears in the print on March 16, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.