Local Level Elections

Last week in Nepal people voted for local municipal and village level representatives for the first time in 20 years! There was a lot of excitement in village up to the election, and it seemed every single person or one of their immediate members was running for office. In anticipation of the rush Peace Corps had all volunteers be on standfast, meaning we were not allowed to leave our villages. Volunteers who had family members running for office, were made to move houses temporarily as well to avoid the craze.

In the capital city of Kathmandu, the ballot was over a meter long to account for all of the candidates running for office! Nepal had a 71% voter turnout, and some people in remote villages had to walk for days to be able to exercise their relatively recently earned democratic rights. For comparison, the 2013 New York city mayoral election had a 24% voter turnout. And we had to walk around the corner.

In a previous post, I discussed some of the details about Nepal’s transition from a Hindu Monarchy to a secular democratic republic. Writing a constitution has led to numerous uprisings, especially sparked by the Medhesi (the people at the border of India and Nepal) that manifest as transportation strikes, fuel shortages, and occasional violence. In 2002, the last democratically elected politicians’ 5 year terms expired, and because this was the height of the Maoist uprising and civil war in Nepal, seats were filled by bureaucrats appointed by high ranked officials, leading to corruption and rule by the elite members of the most powerful political parties. Corruption was widespread, and lead to disintegration of basic human services, such as appointment of teachers in government schools and doctors at local village healthposts. I asked my government counterpart, a doctor at my healthpost, about the upcoming elections and he said he was hopeful that doctors would begin to be assigned to posts based on needs of the community, skills of the doctor, and with consideration to where the doctor’s family lives. Currently, doctors can be transferred at the discretion of government officials, only the very well connected ones have say over where they are placed. After the earthquake, corrupt politicians failed to distribute donated material to villages that needed it, selling foreign donations, leaving food to rot in government buildings, and pocketing funds meant for relief. In 2006 a peace deal was negotiated, and in 2015 the new constitution was officially instated, although there are maaaaany amendments and ongoing discussions about fair representations of all the different factions and populations in Nepal.

Which leads us to these local elections, and hopefully gives a sense of how monumental this event was. Following this local election, Nepal will vote on provincial elections, and then national level seats in the next year. Overall it was a neat time to be in Nepal, and to see the excitement in my host grandmother’s face as she went to our local government school to vote.

To read about the counting process click here. This link is also available in the Nepal in the News section which I just added to my blog! When I have good internet access (rare, but exciting) I try to add to this blog in ways that can give you readers a better idea of what life is like here. Let me know if there are aspects of this country you'd like to know more about, or if you have an experience or article you would like to share.