Kathmandu, November 25

Almost all members of State Affairs Committee of the Parliament today said the voting age of citizens should be lowered from 18 to 16.

They said so while participating in a debate on three elections related bills at the SAC in Singh Durbar today.

Lawmakers, who favoured lowering the voting age, said since Nepali citizens were eligible for citizenship at the age of 16 and since they also qualify for government jobs at the same age, there was no reason to set voting age of 18 years.

The current election bill proposes to grant voting right at the age of 18. Lawmakers who supported lowering the voting age were Prem Suwal, Mahendra Bahadur Shahi, Mohan Tudu, Lokmani Dhakal, Shyam Prasad Dhakal, Shiv Lal Thapa and Shesh Nath Adhikari.

A majority of panel members also said the EC should have the power to announce election dates and the election body should be made strong, independent and autonomous.

“Elections must be held on the fixed date or else we may confront many other problems Political parties have a tendency to be guided by the mass and in order to check parties’ monopoly, the EC must have the power to announce election dates,” said CPN-UML lawmaker Yubraj Gyawali, who is also the party’s vice chair.

But there were a few members who said the EC must coordinate with the government before announcing the poll dates. “When major parties cannot hold election in our country at the time of their choice, how can the EC do that?” said Rabindra Pratap Shah.

Lawmakers associated with major political parties suggested having certain per cent of vote threshold preferably between three and five per cent, but lawmakers associated with fringe parties, including Prem Suwal of Nepal Workers and Peasants Party, said the vote threshold proposal was against the norms of democracy.

Multiple members of the panel also suggested increasing the signature of the number of citizens required for registration of new parties.

A newly registered election bill proposes that parties should submit at least 500 signatures. Majority members of the panel also said the parties should not be allowed to use national symbols as their parties’ symbol or flags.

Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Bimalendra Nidhi said the government wanted the Parliament to pass the election related bill soon so that the EC could accelerate its preparations for elections.

Election Commissioner Ila Sharma said some of the critical reforms that the EC had suggested in the original draft of the election related bills were removed by the government.

She said the provision for state fund to political parties, proposal to scrap parties’ registration for failing to furnish annual audit report to the EC and the proposal to give the EC power to announce election dates were removed by the government.

Sharma said the EC wanted to prepare voter list till the last moment, but the government had removed such provision from the bill.

She told the lawmakers to take informed decision on the election related bills and support the EC-suggested reforms which were reflected in some lawmakers’ amendment proposal on the election related bills.