Results of around 93 % local level elections out

Kathmandu, May 22: As the vote count protracts for the ninth consecutive day after May 13’s local level elections, over 93 per cent results of local bodies have been made public as of Saturday evening. As of 8:00 pm on Saturday, results of 694 of 753 local units have been made public.

According to the Election Commission (EC), election results of 247 municipalities, 447 rural municipalities and 6,381 wards have been made public.

Altogether 247 mayor/deputy mayors, 447 rural municipalities chairpersons/vice-chairpersons, 6,381 ward chairpersons, 6,377 women ward members, 6,264 Dalit women ward members and 12,757 ward members have been announced elected.

Of them, Nepali Congress (NC) has won chief positions in 123 municipalities and 184 rural municipalities while the UML has won chief positions in 67 municipalities and 121 rural municipalities. The NC won the post of deputy mayor in 94 municipalities and UML in 91. The NC has secured 197 posts of deputy chair and UML 122.

Likewise, the ruling coalition partner CPN (Maoist Centre) has won the mayoral posts in 24 municipalities and deputy mayors in 32. It has won chairs and deputy chairs in 96 and 93 rural municipalities respectively.

The CPN (Unified Socialist) has won mayors in nine municipalities; Janata Samajwadi Party-Nepal (JSP-N) has won 10 seats of deputy mayor in municipalities and 19 seats of chairperson and 18 seats of deputy chair in rural municipalities.

Candidates of other parties have been elected as mayor in 24 and deputy mayor in 20 municipalities and in 27 seats of chair and deputy chairs in rural municipalities.

The local level election will elect 35,221 office bearers. The EC has aimed to conclude the vote counting before May 24, including in the metropolitan cities.

As of Saturday evening, mayoral candidates of the ruling alliance have maintained their lead in five of the six metropolitan cities while 32-year-old 

independent candidate Balendra Shah has been leading with a wide margin in the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC).

Similarly, the UML candidate for deputy mayor has been leading the vote counting. 

Likewise, in Lalitpur Metropolitan City, Nepali Congress’ candidate Chiribabu Maharjan is leading the vote count while in Bharatpur Metropolitan City, CPN (MC) candidate Renu Dahal is leading.

Similarly, in Biratnagar Metropolitan City, NC candidate Nagesh Koirala is leading and in Birgunj Metropolitan City, Rajesh Man Singh of Janata Samajwadi Party Nepal is ahead of other candidates by a wide margin. Similarly, the ruling alliance candidate Dhanraj Acharya is leading the mayoral post in Pokhara Metropolitan City.

Results of six sub-metropolitan cities out

Polling results of six out of 11 sub-metropolitan cities of the country have been made public. The results of Hetauda, Butwal, Jitpur Simara, Kalaiya, Nepalgunj and Ghorahi sub-metropolitan cities have been made public as of Saturday night.

The CPN-UML has secured victory at two sub-metropolitan cities by winning both mayoral and deputy mayoral posts in Kalaiya and Ghorahi sub-metropolis while the party has won the deputy-mayoral posts in two sub-metropolis, including Butwal and Jitpur Simara sub-metropolis.

Similarly, independent candidates for mayoral posts have been leading vote counting in two metropolitan cities, Dharan and Janakpurdham.

Independent candidate of Dharan, Harka Raj Rai, is leading in vote counting with a margin of 1,692 votes. Another independent candidate of Janakpurdham, Manoj Kumar Shah Sudi, has been leading with 2,001 votes.

The ruling coalition partner CPN (Unified Socialist) has been able to register victory in one sub-metropolitan city.  The party’s candidate Meena Lama has won the mayoral post in Hetauda Sub-Metropolitan City with 23,075 votes. Her nearest rival Ananta Prasad Poudel of CPN-UML has got 20,908 votes.

Similarly, NC candidate Rajesh Baniya has won the post of deputy-mayor in the sub-metropolis with a margin of 8,687 votes. His nearest rival Sumitra Kafle of UML polled 23,909 votes.

In Kalaiya, UML candidate Binod Prasad Shah has won the mayoral post with 24,174 votes and his nearest competitor of NC Rajesh Ray Yadav received 18,540 votes.

UML candidate Roshan Parbin of UML has won the deputy-mayoral post in the sub-metropolis with 19,251 votes while his nearest rival of JSP-N Pramod Prasad Gupta garnered 18,304 votes.

Likewise, NC candidate Prashant Bista has won the mayoral post in Nepalgunj with 23,460 votes and JSP-N candidate Kamruddin Rai won the post of deputy-mayor with 17,950 votes. In the same way, CPN (Maoist Centre) candidate Rajan Poudel has secured mayoral seat in Jitpur Simara Sub-metropolitan city with the margin of 964 against his nearest rival of UML Saraswoti Devi Chaudhary. Bhola Prasad Adhikari of the UML has won the post of deputy-mayor with the margin of 1,650 votes.

Similarly, Khel Raj Pandey of NC has won the mayoral post in Butwal with 30,249 votes, while his nearest rival Babu Ram Bhattarai of UML garnered 22,718 votes. Sabitra Devi Aryal of UML has won the post of deputy-mayor with the margin of 8,038 votes.

UML candidates Naru Lal Chaudhary and Huma Kumari DC have secured the victory in the post of mayor and deputy-mayor respectively in Ghorahi Sub-Metropolitan City. Chaudhary has won with the margin of 5,360 votes while DC won the election with the margin of only 49 votes.