With the filing of nominations for the upcoming elections of the federal parliament and provincial assemblies, the Election Commission (EC) has issued the Election Monitoring Directive-2022 to hold the November 20 polls in a free, fair, transparent and fearless environment through effective supervision and control of related activities. An eight-member central election monitoring committee, headed by an election commissioner, will make the electoral functions more systematic, effective and result-oriented.

The committee will mainly monitor the activities of the government employees, security personnel, media, social networking sties, political parties and their candidates to ascertain whether or not the concerned stakeholders are abiding by the Election Code of Conduct issued earlier by the EC. Other members of the committee include officials from the EC, Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Home Ministry, and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. This central committee can also form other thematic panels and monitoring units as per the need. This committee has been empowered to recommend the EC for legal and departmental action against a person, institutions or agencies that violate the order and instruction of the EC. The EC, as per the directive, may also form and operationalise election monitoring units led by a first class gazette officer in each province for the observance of the code of conduct.

The EC's directive, however, has drawn flak from the media fraternity as the high-level committee has not included persons from the independent media. This committee is just like any other committee formed by the government, which always sides with the government. The EC should have formed a separate central monitoring panel and district level units solely to carry out media monitoring during the election period. Nepal Press Council could have been assigned to monitor the media and social networking sites, which play a vital role in generating public opinion. The central monitoring committee, where all of the members are from the government ministries, could be biased against the opposition parties and their candidates while conducting election monitoring.

Will this monitoring panel have the guts to take legal action against government ministers and leaders of the ruling coalition in case they violate the election code? Going by the past election expenses declared by the winner candidates, the EC did not take any legal action despite publicly stating that they had spent far more money than the ceiling fixed by the EC. Misuse of power, the bureaucracy, police and government resources by those in power is quite common.

Holding feasts and dolling out cash to the voters at the last moment of the election campaign, especially during the silence period, and preventing the voters supporting the opposition parties from visiting the polling stations are some of the common challenges that the EC has not been able to address. The EC itself does not have the institutional capacity to monitor each and every constituency, where the cadres of the major political parties carry out their clandestine election campaigns that pose serious challenges to the credibility of the elections.

Drive carefully

Extreme caution is advised while travelling, given the freaky weather that we are now witnessing especially in the mid-west and far western parts of the country. Due to the incessant rains since the last few days, landslides have blocked major highways while floods have inundated small towns and villages.

Mountain roads are steep, and the rains make them slippery, so one has to be extra alert while driving on them. A combination of bad weather and overspeeding can prove fatal, as was the case in Ramechhap, where 13 people sustained injuries after a speeding bus turned turtle on the steep road at Bhirpani on Sunday.

Road accidents are, however, not limited to the highways. They can occur anywhere. According to the police, most of the accidents that took place during the Dashain festival involved motorcycles, mostly in the cities and towns. Altogether 97 people lost their lives in more than 1,300 road accidents across the country in less than a fortnight of the festival.

Even during fair weather, roads inside both cities and outside are bad. Large potholes brimming with water during and after the rains can be a trap for unsuspecting motorcyclists and light vehicle drivers. So don't be in a hurry while driving in bad weather.

A version of this article appears in the print on October 11, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.