Nepal polls: Left alliance wins 5 parliamentary seats

The Left alliance has won five parliamentary seats for which votes were cast in the first phase of Nepal's parliamentary and provincial assembly elections, officials said today.
So far, the CPN-UML has won five seats, while CPN-Maoist Centre and an independent candidate won one each.
Meanwhile, vote counting has begun in Kathmandu and other 45 districts where elections were held yesterday.
A total of 1,663 candidates contested polls for parliamentary seats while 2,819 were in the fray for the provincial assembly seats in the historic elections that many hope will bring the much-needed political stability to the Himalayan nation.
The polls will elect 128 members of parliament and 256 members of provincial assemblies.

The house of representatives consists of 275 members, of which 165 would be elected directly under the first-past-the- post system while the remaining 110 will come through the proportional representation system.

Voting on the parliamentary and provincial assembly seats of 32 districts, mostly situated in the hilly and mountainous region, were held on November 26 in the first phase of the elections, in which 65 per cent of voters had exercised their franchise.
The Left alliance is leading in most of the seats where elections were held in the first phase, officials added.
In this phase, 67 per cent voter turnout was registered.

The elections are being seen as the final step in Nepal's transition to a federal democracy following a decade-long civil war till 2006 that claimed more than 16,000 lives.
While many hope Nepal's first state elections will hasten regional development, others fear they will spark a fresh wave of violence.
In 2015, when Nepal adopted a new Constitution that split it into seven states, dozens of people were killed in ethnic clashes over territory and rights.
Following the adoption of the new Constitution, the ethnic Madhesi group, mostly of Indian-origin, protested for months, saying they were not getting enough territory in one of the provinces and were also facing discrimination.

The polls are seen as a major step towards implementing the new Constitution.