KATHMANDU, AUGUST 1

Twelve women lawmakers representing different political parties registered a motion of urgent public importance in the House of Representatives demanding that political parties give proportionate representation to women while fielding candidates for the first-past-the-post election constituencies.

Movers of the motion said all parties tended to give FPTP tickets to men and include women leaders in proportional representation lists. To end this practice, parties should be obligated to give half the FPTP tickets to women, they added.

'The way parties fielded candidates in the last general elections gave an impression that FPTP election is for men and PR election for women.

This is not the spirit of the constitution,' said lawmaker Rekha Sharma, one of the movers of the proposal.

Lawmakers demanded that political parties ensure half the FPTP tickets in the next provincial and parliamentary elections were given to women.

Movers of the motion said at least half of the candidates parties fielded for major posts, such as chiefs, deputy chiefs, ward chairs of local levels, and chiefs and deputy chiefs of district coordination committees should be women. They also demanded that if Dalit women failed to file their candidacy from any ward, provisions should be made to let women of other marginalised communities or minority groups contest those seats.

CPN-MC lawmaker Rekha Sharma said they registered a motion of public importance seeking more FPTP seats for women because the current practice of packing PR lists with women was a distortion of the spirit of the constitution.

She said allocating equal number of FPTP seats to women would not only give the impression that women were equally competent, but would also enhance women leaders' stature.

Sharma said prevailing laws stipulated that of the two top local level posts one should go to a woman. However, parties were giving women a chance to contest only the post of deputy chief.

Sharma said HoR's directives to the government about women representation as sought by them in the proposal would help the Election Commission prepare a comprehensive list of amendments that could be made in election laws.

The EC is consulting stakeholders regarding provisions of election related laws that could be amended. Sharma said women lawmakers had demanded ahead of the last general elections that parties field at least 33 per cent women candidates in the FPTP constituencies, but since the House enacted election laws in a hurry, lawmakers could not consider these issues at that time.

Chief Election Commissioner Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya welcomed women lawmakers' initiative to bring changes to election laws, saying that the EC had put similar provisions in its draft amendments that it wanted to be incorporated in election laws.

Thapaliya said representation of 33 per cent women in the HoR would not help the country meet sustainable development goals. 'To achieve SDG, 40 per cent women representation is required in the HoR and provincial assemblies,' Thapaliya said.

He said lawmakers elected though FPTP system had the chance to spend budget through constituency development fund, but it helped mainly male lawmakers.

Thapaliya said one House panel of the HoR and one panel of the National Assembly had discussed having a provision whereby women candidates would have 33 per cent FPTP constituencies reserved for them or parties should field 33 per cent women candidates under FPTP elections.

He said parties should field 33 per cent women candidates under the FPTP system.

Thapaliya said laws related to local levels should be amended to obligate parties to field 50 per cent candidates for the election of ward chairpersons.

'At present there is no reservation for women for the post of ward chair. This post holds a lot of executive power for which women's representation should be ensured,' he added.

CPN-MC lawmaker Amrita Thapa moved the proposal which 11 lawmakers including Chanda Chaudhary of Democratic Socialist Party-Nepal, Laxmi Kumari Chaudhary of CPN (Unified Socialist), Laxmi Pariyar of Nepali Congress, Lila Devi Sitaula of Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal, Rangamati Shahi of the Nepali Congress, Bina Budhathoki of CPN-UML, Rekha Sharma of the CPN-Maoist Centre, and Durga Paudel of Rastriya Janamorcha supported.

A version of this article appears in the print on August 2, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.