Kathmandu, January 8

The Election Commission said that it had started providing training to its staffers and officials about single transferable vote method.

The move of the poll panel came after the government decided to hold National Assembly election under the STV system.

EC Information Officer Surya Prasad Aryal said EC staffers and officials needed to know details about the STV system before holding election under the system.

“The system is new even to us, as it is going to be applied for the first time,” said Aryal. He said that he was not in a position to provide details, as he was still

learning.

Aryal however, said the STV system was used in 1992 but vote weightage of all voters was the same then.

According to Aryal, vote weightage will be different in the upcoming NA election, as vote weightage of each provincial assembly member will be 48 and 18 for each chief and deputy chief of local levels, who will be the voters of the NA election.

There are 2,056 voters — 550 provincial assembly members and 1,506 chiefs and deputy chiefs of 753 local levels.

The EC said it will also provide training to chief returning officers and returning officers on vote counting methods and selection of winning candidates.

The government has decided to hold NA election on February 7 under the STV method.

Eight NA members will be elected from each province and three will be appointed by the president on the recommendation of the government, as per the constitution.

The EC said STV is a voting system designed to achieve proportional representation through ranking in multi-seat constituencies. Each voter has a single vote, which is allocated to his/her most preferred candidate