Kathmandu, December 16

The Election Commission today said final results of vote counting under the proportional representation electoral system would be out tomorrow morning, as vote counting in Sarlahi-2 was still under way.

Chief Returning Officer of Sarlahi-1 Man Bahadur Basnet told THT that four ballot boxes were yet to be opened.

EC Spokesperson Navaraj Dhakal said counting would be completed by midnight and the results would be declared tomorrow morning. He, however, said the EC would only declare the number of votes secured by parties and not the number of allocated seats.

“We will not make any announcement until we get results from the chief returning officers in writing,” said Dhakal.

According to Dhakal, the EC will first complete calculation of seats to be allocated to parties and ask the parties to submit the names of PR candidates they have nominated. “It will take some time to complete these processes,” said Dhakal.

According to the EC’s website, only five parties — CPN-UML, Nepali Congress, CPN-Maoist Centre, Federal Socialist Forum-Nepal, and Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal — were able to get national-level status.

Naya Shakti Party-Nepal, Rastriya Janamorcha, Nepal Workers and Peasants Party and Rastriya Prajatantra Party did not secure three per cent of total valid PR votes but won one FPTP seat each. They will have representation in the Parliament with independent status.

The UML secured 3,161,295 votes, while the NC got 3,111,643 votes and the CPN-MC 1,295,903 votes. The FSF-N garnered 469,461 votes and the RJP-N 470,486 votes in the PR election for federal parliament.

The UML could get 41 PR seats in the Parliament. The NC 40 PR seats, the CPN-MC 17, and FSF-N and RJP-N six seats each.

The UML got the highest number of PR votes in Provinces 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6, while the NC secured the highest number of PR votes in Provinces 2 and 7.