The Election Commission has invited former US president Jimmy Carter, founder of the Carter Center, to observe the upcoming provincial and federal parliamentary elections. The country is holding the two elections together in two phases on November 26 and December 7.

The election body said it has sent an invitation to Carter to visit Nepal for the polls. The poll body has also granted the Carter Center permission to monitor the polls.

The 39th US president, who established the Carter Center in 1982, visited Nepal to observe the Constituent Assembly elections in 2008 and 2013.

Although he had planned to visit to Nepal in November 2015 to observe the work of the Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project, under the Habitat for Humanity, an INGO, in Chitwan, the trip was cancelled after an uneasy situation in Nepal arising from a border blockade imposed by India.

According to Election Commissioner Narendra Dahal, diplomats from the European Union were also invited to observe the polls. The EC has invited heads of the election authorities of different countries with which it has signed memorandum of understanding for mutual cooperation and those which have initiated the process for signing the MoU. 

The EC has signed MoUs with the election bodies of South Korea and Australia and their chiefs have been invited, according to EC Spokesperson Navaraj Dhakal.

The heads of election authorities of different countries associated with the Forum of Election Management Bodies of South Asia, Association of Asian Election Authorities and Association of World Election Bodies were also invited, the EC said.