Kathmandu, February 2

The Election Commission has floated a draft bill proposing that a political party garnering minimum 1.5 percent votes be funded from state coffers to run its office and budget allocated for the party to be determined on the basis of votes it garners.

The bill, however, has not mentioned the exact budget as it is still under discussion. The EC will have separate fund to arrange the money as per the proposal.

Only those political parties who follow election laws, provisions related to inclusion of women, Dalits and other marginalised communities in the party committees and auditing rules will be illegible to receive the money.

A party garnering minimum 1.5 percent votes of the total votes cast in the elections can get the money. Whether to provide budget to a certain party, who wins at least one seat under the-first-past-the-post system or the stipulated percent votes under the Proportional System, and whether to combine the votes of both FPTP and PR is still under discussion, said Madhav Paudel, former minister for Information and Communications and former Law secretary.

“This proposal is meant to make political parties transparent and create an environment for regulating the donation sought by political parties,” Paudel told THT.

A party will be eligible to seek donation only during elections and the state will fund them to run their offices at other times, as per the proposed provision. The bill also proposed some criteria for donation givers as well, according to him.

The draft bill also has some provisions regarding auditing of the parties, controlling the parties’ split and provisions that enable EC to decline registration of a party if the latter fails to fulfil certain requirements, he said.

The Election Commission held preliminary discussions on the draft bill with former commissioners and secretaries of the commission yesterday and with some lawyers today. The bill will be finalised only after discussions with political parties, legal experts and other concerned groups in different stages, said the commission’s spokesperson Basudev Guragain.

First round of discussions with some political parties will be held on February 5.

The bill has also proposed some provisions that authorises the EC to reject the registration of a party, scrap the registration and also prohibit the party from conducting certain activities that are against election laws.

Chief Election Commissioner Ayodhi Prasad Yadav said the draft was proposed to make internal organisations of political parties vibrant as well as to institutionalise democracy. Commissioner Ila Sharma said the bill mainly intended to make the economic activities of political parties transparent, make them more responsible to the people and induct other contextual provisions in the election system.