Valley
TU publishes student union poll schedule
The Tribhuvan University on Saturday published the timetable for the Free Student Union polls.Binod Ghimire
The Tribhuvan University on Saturday published the timetable for the Free Student Union polls. The election process starts on February 12 with voting scheduled to take place on February 25. The university has also stopped admissions in order to control election-targeted enrolments.
The FSU elections have not been held for eight years. The timetable was finalised after discussion with student unions affiliated to the major political parties. The voter list will be published on February 12 and nomination forms distributed three days later. Students below 28 years can take part in the polls at the respective colleges.
Candidate registration deadline is 3pm on February 16 while the list is published at 5pm the same day.
Anyone who has complaints against the candidates can complain in writing on February 17 by 2pm. A candidate can withdraw his/her candidacy on February 19. The TU has directed the colleges to prepare for the polls as per the schedule.
The TU, with around 85 percent share of university students in the country, postponed the polls three times due to non-cooperation from student unions. The biennial election has not taken place since 2009.
The country’s oldest varsity had first announced the poll date for February 2012, which was deferred after the unions were divided over the election modality. Some advocated the first-past-the-post (FPTP) module, while others pitched for a proportional system. Treading the middle path, the TU later decided to adopt a mixed electoral system that would allow equal division of seats between those elected through the proportional system and the FPTP.
The election announced for June 2013 was also cancelled as the student unions affiliated to the Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML and the erstwhile UCPN (Maoist) were found to be enrolling hundreds of fake students.
In 2014, the TU announced the election for June 1 and rescheduled it for May 3 before calling it off after 18 student unions protested. Some 400,000 students are enrolled in the 60 constituent and around 1,100 affiliated colleges under the TU.
Timetable
Voter list publication Feb 12
Candidacy filing Feb 16
Withdrawing candidacy Feb 19