Elections to the National Assembly are set to be held on Wednesday, in a move to create the Upper House for the first time in 11 years.

The country had a unicameral legislature after the Interim Constitution was authenticated on January 15, 2007 until the dissolution of Legislature-Parliament on October 14, 2017.

The new constitution adopted in 2015 envisages a bicameral parliament. Elections for the House of Representatives were held in November-December last year.

At a press conference on Tuesday, the Election Com-mission said preparations for electing the Upper House have been over. The EC said voting will take place between 10am and 3pm on Wednesday.

“Counting of votes will begin right after the polls conclude,” said Chief Election Commissioner Ayodhee Prasad Yadav. “We’ll hand over the results to the President as soon as we receive them from all the seven provinces.”

The election authority said the vote will clear the way for it to announce the results of the House of Representatives under the Proportional Representation (PR) category.

Citing a “prohibitive” clause of the constitution, the EC has put the PR results on hold. This has prevented formation of a new government. The EC said it would announce the PR results after the final outcome of the National Assembly (NA) elections is known.

“We plan to hand over the final election results of the Lower House to the President between February 14 and February 17,” said Election Commissioner Narendra Dahal.

In the 59-member NA, elections are held for 56 seats while the remaining three are appointed by the President on the recommendation of the government. Eight each are elected from one province—three from women’s quota, one from Dalits, one from disabled or monitory communities and three others from the open category.

As many as 83 candidates from 13 parties had filed their nominations. Six of them have withdrawn from the race, the candidacy of one was revoked while 24 were elected unopposed. This has left 52 candidates vying for 32 positions, according to the EC.

With three from among women and three from the open category already elected, there will be contests only for two positions—Dalits and disabled or minority—in provinces 1 and 7.

All the eight members were elected unopposed in Province 2, requiring no elections there. In provinces 3 and 6, polls are required for all the eight positions.

In Province 4, a candidate from the disabled or minority community was elected unopposed. Now there will be a vote for the other seven positions. In Province 5, there will be contest for five posts as three female candidates were elected unopposed.

An electoral college of Provincial Assembly members and the chiefs and deputy chiefs of the local governments votes for the members.

Although there are 2,056 voters in total, only 1,677 will cast the vote with polls not required in Province 2. There are 443 Provincial Assembly (PA) members and 1,234 local government representatives as voters. The vote of a PA member weighs 48 while that of a local unit representative has a value of 18. A pen will be used to mark the order of preference of candidates, not the Swastika stamp. Green ballot papers have been arranged for PA members and red for the chiefs and deputy chiefs of the local federal units.

Elections for three posts of women and three under the open category will be held as per the Single Transferable System while the first-past-the-post system will be adopted for electing members from Dalit and disabled or minority groups, according to the EC.

Those in the fray