CONDITION

EC CONDITION FOR OBSERVERS
Kathmandu, 21 Aug.: The Election Commission has called on national and international communities to apply for the observation of the upcoming Constituent Assembly (CA) elections with new provisions, RSS reports..

The Commission has made the call online for the first time.

The deadline for submitting applications is till September 10. The new provisions are for making the election monitoring reliable and acceptable at par with world standard.

As per the new provisions, the election observation body should compulsorily visit 100 voting centers in all mountain, hilly and Terai regions.

Besides, those going for election observation for the first time should have an academic qualification of proficiency certificate level..

The Commission wants to discourage the trend of visiting only the poll centers which are easily accessible and not in remote belts and make the election monitoring disciplined and reliable.

According to Commissioner PB Thakur, the Commission has managed training for those going for election monitoring, and that the license of those not abiding by observation rules and regulations will be revoked.

The Commission would provide identity cards to those deputing for observation after training and provide them certificates only after they submit the report to the Commission.

As many as 148 domestic organisations and around sixty thousand people had been involved in the observation of the first CA election, whereas 854 representatives from 30 international organisations took part in the monitoring.

Of them, only 36 domestic bodies and eight international bodies had submitted the monitoring report, Election Commissioner Dr. Thakur said, adding they would fall under Commission priority for the second CA election.

The Commission had on August 12 issued a public notice and urged the monitoring bodies to apply according to the CA Election Observation Directives- 2070 BS.

The applications can be dropped at the Commission office in Kathmandu valley and District Election Offices in the districts. None is allowed to carry out observation going against the 'election code of conduct'.

The Commission has a policy of inviting election experts, national and international noted personalities and organisations, diplomatic missions and SAARC Election Management for the observation of election.

As per the CA Election Observation Directives-2070 BS, the observer should submit a preliminary report within a month of the conclusion of voting and final report within the next three months.

If any monitoring body is proved associated with any political party and political wings, license of that body will be immediately annulled, according to Commissioner Dr Thakur.

The observer will follow the directives such as one should not go to prohibited places because of security sensitivity, and should inform the EC if terror is created depriving people of voting rights.

The organsations will be given permission to certain constituencies and have to submit report of the activities in the polling booths, said EC Spokesman Bir Bahadur Rai.

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