The Election Commission announced winners of the elections to the Provincial Assemblies under the proportional representation system on Wednesday, 42 days after the completion of the second phase of elections.

This has paved the way for the National Assembly election scheduled for February 7 as the Provincial Assembly members, along with chiefs and deputy chiefs of the local governments, are the voters for the Upper House election.

However, formation of a new government at the centre could be delayed further as the EC is planning to make public the RP results of the House of Representatives elections only after the completion of the Upper House election.

The EC’s declaration of PR results to the state assemblies came shortly after the government appointed the provincial chiefs and temporary headquarters of the each province. The EC said in a press statement that it would provide certificates to the winners under the PR category at 1pm on Friday after consulting with the political parties.

As per Clause 60(8) of Provincial Assembly Election Act, the EC has to submit the list of elected candidates to the provincial chiefs and their name lists should be published in Nepal Gazette. “We will complete these tasks before January 21, the date we have to make public the voters’ list for the National Assembly election as per the election schedule,” said Election Commissioner Narendra Dahal.

The election body had allotted seats to the political parties for state assembles under the PR category on December 22 by determining the number of seats for each party based on Sainte-Laguë method.

The CPN-UML has topped the PR chart by securing a total of 75 seats, followed by the NC with 72 and the CPN (Maoist Centre) with 35, while the remaining seats went to other parties with a total of 13 parties getting at least one seat. Under the PR category, 220 candidates have been elected out of 550 strong provincial assembly members in seven provinces.

But the election body delayed declaring winners despite holding the list for the last three weeks as the government had been postponing appointments of state chiefs.

Clause 62 of the Provincial Assembly Election Act has a provision that says the EC has to submit the election results to the provincial chiefs within a week after the final results are declared.