Nepal will elect its third Vice President on Friday. The vice presidential election will be held at the Parliament building at New Baneshwor, Kathmandu.

“All preparations are complete. Voting will take place from 10 am to 3 pm on Friday,” said Shaligram Sharma Paudel, spokesman at the Election Commission.

The final list of candidates published by the commission includes Ashta Laxmi Shakya from the CPN-UML, Pramila Yadav and Ram Sahaya Prasad Yadav from the Janata Samajbadi Party, and Mamata Jha from the Janamat Party.

Pramila Yadav, however, has announced the withdrawal of her candidacy and has supported Ram Sahay Prasad Yadav of her party in the election. Despite her announcement, her candidacy could not officially be withdrawn before the commission on Sunday unveiled the final list of candidates.

As many as 332 federal lawmakers and 550 provincial lawmakers are eligible to cast their votes in the election.

The election of the Vice President is held based on a weighted voting system, with an electoral college of 884 federal and provincial lawmakers in total.

A vote cast by a member of both upper and lower houses will have a weightage of 79, whereas it is 48 for a vote cast by a member of the provincial assembly.

No common candidate

The ruling alliance’s efforts to finalise a common candidate at the last hour, failed.

On Saturday, three Tarai-based parties—Mahantha Thakur’s Loktantrik Samajbadi Party, CK Raut’s Janamat Party and the Nagarik Unmukti Party of Ranjita Shrestha—forged a working alliance and fielded their own candidate, Mamata Jha, of the Janamat Party for Vice President.

The Nepali Congress has already decided to support the Janata Samajbadi nominee Ram Sahay Prasad Yadav.

The Rastriya Swatantra Party has yet to decide who it will vote for in the vice-presidential election. In the presidential election earlier this month, the party had voted for Ram Chandra Paudel of the ruling coalition. The Rastriya Prajantra Party has decided to abstain from the voting process.

“We [ruling parties] will try to agree on a common candidate until the last hour. Our official candidate is Ram Sahay Prasad Yadav from the Janata Samajbadi Party,” Manish Suman, spokesperson of the Janata Samajbadi Party, told the Post Thursday evening. “Even the lawmakers from the Nagarik Unmukti Party who had supported [Mamata] Jha’s candidacy, will be voting for our candidate.”

Chandan Singh, the general secretary of the Janamat Party, however, said the candidacy of Jha of his party is intact. “The three parties that have forged a working alliance will vote for our candidate. We will garner votes from the lawmakers of other parties as well,” he said.

Past Vice Presidents

In July 2008, the Congress, the UML and the Madheshi Janadhikaar Forum (MJF) agreed to share President, Vice President and Constituent Assembly (CA) chair positions. Accordingly, the UML got the chair of the CA, while the Congress and the MJF got the presidential and vice-presidential posts, respectively. MJF’s Parmananda Jha was elected the first Vice President of Nepal, securing 305 votes, while his rival Shanta Shrestha from the CPN (Maoist) got 243 votes.

Similarly, Nanda Bahadur Pun from the UCPN (Maoist) was elected as the country’s second Vice President in November 2015, securing 325 votes against 212 of Congress candidate Amiya Kumar Yadav.

Pun was the common candidate of the ruling coalition, backed by the UML, the UCPN (Maoist), the Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal and some fringe parties. The main opposition Congress, however, fielded its own candidate.

Vice President Nanda Bahadur Pun was re-elected unopposed in March 2018. The ruling UML and the Maoist Centre had fielded Pun as the common candidate of the left alliance after President Bidya Devi Bhandari was re-elected.

However, the main opposition, Congress, which had fielded Kumari Laxmi Rai against Bhandari, did not challenge Pun.

Since the election of the first Vice President, concerns regarding the futility of the position have been ignored. Experts have been stressing that the time is ripe to review the role of this ‘useless’ position.

Article 67 (1) of the Constitution of Nepal states that there shall be a Vice President of Nepal. Its clause (2) says, “The functions to be performed by the President shall be performed by the Vice President during the absence of the President.”

Although the constitution envisages the duties and responsibilities of the Vice President in the absence of the President, lack of a dedicated role has made the position nominal.