THE government’s decision to hold the elections of the local levels on May 13 has ended all speculations regarding the crucial democratic exercise. A meeting of the Council of Ministers on Monday fixed the date of the local elections and the decision has been lauded by all political parties. The decision set into motion all the preparatory works related to conduct the elections in a fair and fresh manner. The Election Commission, immediately after the announcement of elections dates, began process to set up required offices in local levels to hold the polls. No doubt, election is an important democratic exercise in which the people elect their representatives.

The previous local level elections, held for the first time after the promulgation of the new federal democratic republican constitution, were held in 2017 in three phases. But this time around these elections will be held on a single day in all the 753 local levels, which is a challenging job in terms of managing manpower, logistics and security. But the government is confident to manage everything. Single day voting cuts poll expenditures than those held in more than one phase.

Following discussions among the political stakeholders and necessary consultations with the legal experts, it was earlier decided that the local elections will be held in May 18 with the consideration that the term of the current local level representatives is expiring on May 19. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba had held discussions with the Election Commission officials regarding the date, and the commission had suggested to hold the election on May 18. However, considering that the local levels will be without elected representatives if the election date is pushed further, the government decided to hold them on May 13, as there will be no legal difference to hold the elections some days earlier. The main thing is that there should be no void of representatives after the term expiry of the people’s representatives and the constitution has not envisaged such a void.

Before the promulgation of the new constitution, the nation had had a bitter experience when the local bodies were without elected representatives for one and half decades since 2002 to 2017. Due to such a void, the local level governments had to be manned by civil servants. But as the civil servants had not had direct contact with people and their problems, the people had to suffer a lot. The development activities were stalled. Instead, anomalies of different types flourished.

It is evident from the performances of the elected local level representatives in the last four and a half years. They showed their competencies during the COVID-19 crisis for the past two years. Besides, they expedited the development activities and the people fully cooperated with them. The elected representatives have surely shown why the local levels be manned by people-elected leaders rather than by the civil servants. Now when the government has decided to hold the elections before the term of the previously elected representatives expires, there will be no void of any sort.