Kathmandu, January 16:

The Election Commission (EC) is awaiting political decision on constituent assembly election process to make a detailed plan for conducting the historic polls scheduled for June.

EC spokesperson Laxman Bhattarai said the commission is yet to make a clear decision on election process though it has been announced that mixed election system will be followed. He said the EC would consolidate its plans after political parties give a clear directive on the methodology.

“On the one hand we can hold parallel elections in which we will only think about the extra 204 seats through proportional representation, while on the other we will hold polls for the second half as a compensation to those candidates representing ethnic, regional or gender sections who cannot secure optimum representation in the first half,” he said, adding that the first is called Parallel System (PS) and the second Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMPR). In the PS, the geographical representation and proportionality will remain high, possibility of inclusion is high and representation of minority is also possible.

The MMPR will compensate the imbalance caused by the first-pass-the-post election in which possibility of inclusion is high, only a few votes will be invalid, geographic representation will be maintained and it will distribute equal weightage of votes. Bhattarai said that the commission discussed about both the systems with political parties last week “but the leaders are yet to provide the commission a concrete answer”.

He added that “Interim Constitution is silent on whether to use one or two votes in constituent assembly polls”.

According to Bhattarai, Germany and New Zealand use same vote, printing on its two sides; Japan, Korea, Lithuania and Thailand use two separate votes; while Lesotho, Mexico and Venezuela use only one vote for parallel system.

Meanwhile, the commission today organised a press meet to disseminate information about the recent development and preparation for an election to a constituent assembly.