Nepal’s human rights body urges all stakeholders to comply with election code of conduct

Kathmandu, Feb 5 (PTI) Nepal’s rights body on Thursday urged all the concerned stakeholders to strictly comply with the election code of conduct and ensure that the upcoming polls are conducted in a human rights–friendly environment.

Nepal is set to hold the House of Representatives elections on March 5, the first since last year's deadly Gen-Z protests that toppled the K P Sharma Oli-led coalition government.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said that monitoring carried out by its offices across the country has pointed to incidents relating to the violation of voters’ right to secret and confidential voting.

It also flagged the use of hate speech against candidates and the circulation of misleading news predicting the victory of specific candidates even before polling day, which has created confusion among voters.

“The discussions held with chiefs and representatives of various organisations involved in election observation underscored the need for conducting the election in a manner that fully respects human rights,” it added.    NHRC also urged all the concerned stakeholders to refrain from hate speech and personal attacks, avoid the misuse of social media, respect voter privacy, stop publishing or broadcasting misleading news, avoid violence, strengthen voter education and fully adhere to the election code of conduct to ensure human rights–friendly elections.

In a separate development, Prime Minister Sushila Karki reiterated that the House of Representatives elections will be conducted on the stipulated date of March 5.  PM Karki inspected the progress made in printing of the ballot papers at the government-owned Janak Education Materials Centre Press in Bhaktapur district.

She told the reporters after the inspection that "the election will be held as per the schedule."  “I think that the weather will be favourable on the day and we would be able to conduct the election in the entire country in a single day," she asserted.

Earlier, Karki had hinted that the election might be held in two phases if the weather becomes unfavourable in the mountainous region of the country, which invited criticism from some political sections.

Karki, also the former chief justice, said that she is eager to hand over power to the elected government by successfully conducting the general election and return to her home.

The government-run press has already completed the printing of all 20.83 million ballot papers required for the proportionate voting system, according to the Election Commission.  Of the 20.32 million ballot papers required for the direct election, printing of 7.26 million has been completed. PTI SBP  RD RD