Forgot your password?
Threshold And Unification Of Small Political Parties
Threshold And Unification Of Small Political Parties
KTM Metro Reporter
April 20, 2017
The provision made for any political party to be a national party needs to earn at least three percent of national votes and one candidate to get directly elected. The three percent is called threshold. Small parties have been uniting to get to the threshold rather than getting to die.
Five Madhesi political parties such as Tarai Madhesh Democratic Party of Mahantha Thakur, Sadbhawna Party of Rajendra Mahato, Tarai Madhesh Sadbhawana Party of Mahendra Raya Yadav, Rastriya Madhes Samajwadi Party of Sarat Singh Bhandari, and Madhesi Janadhikari of Raj Kishore Yadav have announced that they are uniting to a single party called Rastriya Janata Party today.
They have shed the Madheshi word, and formed a national party from among the regional parties. They know that after the introduction of threshold they might not be able to survive politically as the threshold would cause them to disappear.
Even the Rastriyaa Prajantra Party (RPP) claimed to be the fourth largest party in the parliament has not a single directly elected lawmaker. RPP became the fourth largest because of the votes it has received following the provision made for the proportional representation.
Another small party Nepal Workers and Peasant’s Party (NWPP) that has been winning at least two seats in the parliament might have sufficient threshold votes to be a national party. It might be in a margin in the coming days.
Other political parties such as Federal Social Party and Naya Shakti Party have not been tested yet in any elections but the members and party leaders are not new faces at all. They are old wine in a new bottle. It won’t be a surprise if they were not represented in the parliament at all. So, they also are trying to unify into a new party, according to the local media report.
Parties of CP Mainali and Chitra Bahadur KC are sure to disappear either merging with other parties or not getting enough votes to survive.
The threshold provision made in the new law for the political parties to be national parties would considerably reduced the number of political parties, and those one-man show leaders would have probably no role to play in the governance in the future.
