Although uncertainty hangs over the constituent assembly (CA) elections promised for mid-June, the passage of two Bills — the Election Commission Bill, 2007, and Election (Crime and Punishment) Bill, 2007 — is a positive step, as it would facilitate poll preparations. The first law authorises the EC to fix a ceiling on election expenditure of candidates. Violators will face the loss of their candidacy and a further six-year disqualification from contesting any election. It also requires them to submit full details of their election expenditure to the election office within 35 days of the poll results. To ensure free and fair elections, the EC can also work out a code of conduct for the political parties, the government offices and the media, and annul the candidacy of any violator. The new law also prohibits the use of posters, wall paintings and banners other than the pamphlets the size and colour of which are to be specified by the EC. The election crime and punishment law covers such areas as protection of the country’s sovereignty and integrity, communal harmony and punishment for non-Nepalis for voting.

Meanwhile, the EC is drafting 25 other election-related directives and regulations relating to such matters as duties of election officers and counting officers. Two other related Bills still under the consideration of the parliamentary State Affairs Committee are the Political Party Bill and the Constituent Assembly Member Election Bill. All these laws are necessary for free and fair polls. But law alone is not enough, as the experience with the post-1990 elections shows. For example, the EC publishes its list of dos and don’ts ahead of each election, but they are often ignored, with the EC looking on helplessly, particularly when the violators happen to be those in power. In the past, the prime minister and ministers were seen to be using state machinery and resources for electioneering like the use of helicopters at the taxpayers’ expense. Perhaps because of this that the political parties during the period developed the unhealthy tendency of thinking electoral victory possible only when they fought elections while in power.

In the past, unfortunately, EC officials came into sharp public controversy from time to time over various election disputes. Most such controversies involved cases where EC officials were seen to favour people in power. That is one of the main reasons why not a single chief election commissioner post-1990 was publicly esteemed as a model of impartiality and courageous judgement. The present holders of the EC, therefore, need to demonstrate that they are a class apart, and fear none when it comes to their constitutional duty. Serious questions of credibility can be raised about election results more when election officials fail to display courage and impartial judgement than the attempts of vested interests to swing the results. The problem has rather been one of implementing the law than the lack of it. For instance, there were ceilings on poll expenditure in the past, too. But hardly anyone was ever punished for exceeding the limits, though most candidates and parties did. The challenge ahead of the CA polls is, therefore, how to ensure that the law is rigorously enforced.