Kathmandu, January 31
Major political parties are close to an agreement on keeping a three per cent threshold under the proportionate election system.
After an informal understanding at the top level, State Affairs Committee is preparing to approve the Bill related to Political Parties and forward it to the Parliament meeting.
Small parties like CPN-ML and NWPP have protested against the threshold provision. United Democratic Madheshi Front is silent on the provision, but most of the parties affiliated to it have opposed threshold.
Inclusion of threshold means most of the parties, that have one or two seats in the parliament, will cease to exist after the next elections.
Rameshwar Phunyal, a member of the sub-committee under the SAC, said parties are close to an agreement on threshold.
The ruling CPN-Maoist Centre, on the other hand, says a 1.5 per cent threshold will do, pointing at small parties’ opposition to the provision.
The dispute over election symbols has also ended with political parties removing a clause that states that symbols matching with the national flag will be scrapped automatically. This means CPN-UML and Rastriya Prajatantra can continue to use the Sun and the Cow as their election symbols.
The sub-committee has also rejected the demand that different parties should be allowed to form a joint front and use one election symbol.
And preparations are afoot to decide the fate of Bills related to Local Levels.
The SAC will send two Bills related to local levels and political parties. Only after the Parliament passes the two Bills can the government expedite the process of conducting elections.
