After three months of debate on the issue, the Interim Election Council has announced November 19 as the date for polls for electing a new Constituent Assembly (CA).

A cabinet meeting held at Singha Durbar on Thursday announced that the CA election is to be held on November 19. The government"s decision comes at a time when the Interim Election Council, which has been formed solely for the purpose of holding fresh polls, is being criticized for delay in announcing a poll date even three months after its formation.

According to Minister for Local Development Bidyadhar Mallik, the cabinet meeting also forwarded the ordinance on amending the Election of Members of the Constituent Assembly (CA) Act, 2013 to President Ram Baran Yadav for approval. The president is likely to approve the ordinance on Friday.

At a time when political parties were sharply divided over the eligibility threshold of one percent for seat allocations under proportional electoral system, the Interim Election Council has forwarded the election-related ordinance after removing the proposed  threshold provision. “There is no eligibility threshold in the ordinance,” Mallik told Republica.
Though the EC had earlier proposed that a political party must secure 1.5 percent of the total valid vote cast in the election in order to claim seat allocations under proportional representation, the constitutional body reduced the figure to one percent following  objections by fringe parties.
The government has also excluded the proposed provision that a candidate should disclose his/her property details and state whether or not he/she is a defendant in any court case filed by the government.

However, the ordinance has barred candidates who have already been handed down final verdicts of guilty by the courts for involvements in criminal cases.

“Those who have been handed down final sentences by the courts for involvement in criminal cases including corruption, rape, murder,  passport misuse, money laundering, drug smuggling and human trafficking, among other things, or have been black-listed, cannot file candidacy,”  Mallik said about the provision in the ordinance.

The Election Commission (EC) had proposed that persons convicted of  criminal offense or accused of moral turpitude should be barred from  filing candidacy and be allowed to contest elections only six years after completing the sentences handed down by the courts or other judicial authorities.

According to the proposal, a person who is convicted of murder, theft, robbery, misappropriation of foreign currency, kidnap, rape, corruption, human trafficking, money laundering, banking irregularity, passport misuse, drug smuggling, jailbreak or abetting in jail break, smuggling of protected fauna, flora or objects of archeological importance, illegal trade, and spying, among other illegal activities, or has shown moral turpitude, cannot be a member of any political party if he or she has not completed the sentence handed down by a court or any other  judicial authority.

Following failure to forge consensus on these issues, the High Level Political Committee (HLPC) on Monday had entrusted the Interim Election  Council with responsibility for settling contentious issues related to elections and announcing the election date.

UCPN (Maoist) and United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF), among other political parties, were against the new proposal while Nepali Congress (NC) and the CPN-UML had been sticking to their position on the eligibility threshold.

Constituency Delineation Commission

The Interim Election Council has also formed a five-member Constituency  Delineation Commission (CDC) under former justice Tahir Ali Ansari. Geographer Netra Dhital, sociologist Dambar Chemjong and administrator  Madhu Nidhi Tiwari have been appointed as members of the commission while Secretary at the Office of Prime Minister and Council of Minister Raju Man Singh Malla is member secretary of the CDC, said Information and Communications Minister Madhav Prasad Poudel.
According to Article 154 A of the Interim Constitution, the government may constitute a Constituency Delimitation Commission to determine election constituencies for the purpose of election of members of the Constituent Assembly, and the commission shall consist of a retired
justice of the SC as chairperson, a geographer, a sociologist and an administrator or management expert as members and a special class officer in the service of the government as member-secretary.

Poudel, who is also the government"s spokesperson, said that the CDC had been given one month to submit its report. The commission will review the existing 240 election constituencies in accordance with the latest census report. Earlier, the political parties had already agreed on a
491-member CA.

Clause 3 (a) of Article 63 in the Interim Constitution states that members to be elected under the first-past-the-post modality will be elected on the basis of one member from each of the 240 election constituencies delimited by the Election Constituency Delimitation Commission in accordance with the population fixed by the national census preceding the CA election, and for this purpose an administrative district will be treated as an election district, with the number of
constituencies therein determined on the basis of the population of that district.

The Supreme Court (SC) on April 16 had ordered the Interim Election Council and the Election Commission (EC) to delineate the election  constituencies anew before conducting polls for the CA.

From Republic online News .

U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325, adopted in October 2000, stresses the need for women to participate in the maintenance and promotion of peace and security, providing a platform for women involvement in peace negotiations. Twelve years later, in a world of continuing instability and violence, it’s become imperative to critically look at how far this resolution has gone to bring about peace.

Although women have begun to play an important role in conflict resolution, defense and in foreign affairs mechanisms through their activism within civil society organizations, they are still under-represented in agenda setting and in decision-making positions.

Peace agreements and institutional arrangements in post-war and conflict times still lack the basic provisions for gender equality, such as reform processes for the specific security needs of women and girls, the infusion of women staff in the institutions concerned, and the required infrastructure and human resources need for the reception of victims of gender based violence, to name a few. UNSC Resolution 1325 was adopted by unanimous vote, and yet out of the 193 UN member states, only 24 countries have adopted national action plans for its
implementation, 6 of which are from Africa.

Do we dare to critically look into whether or not our male-dominated institutions really want to take on steps that would positively affect the lives of more than half of the population? Although such a gender sensitive approach to peace is highly cost effective, war and conflict has become profitable and sustained during times of global economic recession.

Trillions of dollars are spent on weapons, emergency humanitarian aid for displaced persons and peacekeeping missions in countries where peace seems to be nowhere in sight, and yet too little money and time are invested on helping women, the most victimized demographic group of conflict areas, participate in peace negotiations and peacebuilding initiatives.

While entire communities suffer from the consequences of armed conflict, women and girls are particularly affected because of their status in society and their sex. Parties to conflict often rape women and girls with impunity, sometimes using systematic rape as a tactic of war. Conflict causes a mass flow of refugees and other displaced persons, the majority of which are women, adolescent girls and children. Women find themselves heading single-parent households without having any prior education or work experience, and too often they play the role of care givers of injured combatants and elderly relatives. Conflict expands the horizons of responsibilities of women who are traditionally shackled with family care and maintenance, and yet we still don’t allow them the space and place to be involved or consulted when peace is being discussed or negotiated.

We can make excuses for this lack of attention toward what could mean sustainable peace, but as long as women do not dominate or play an active role in the economy, there is little chance that their participation in peacebuilding will be entertained. Let’s face it: Conflict means money and the pillaging of natural resources for warlords, imperialist forces and multi-national corporations. What makes us think that such chauvinistic, money- and power-hungry institutions will give an ear to women participation in peacebuilding processes, a matter not only of equal rights but also sustainable peace?

We have reached a time where the question of whether or not women should be included in peace processes is no longer relevant. Instead we should be asking if we can afford not to have women systematically involved in peace negotiations. If you are part of the 1% who profit from war and conflict, the answer is “no”. However, if you are part of the 99% of the world population who are sick of their taxes being spent on sustaining war, if you are a victim of conflict, and if you are tired of wishing for peace on earth without seeing anything on the news that suggests your wish will come true any time soon, then the answer is ‘YES!’.

We cannot afford NOT to have women involved in peace negotiations. Unfortunately, because the world economy is hooked on sustaining conflict, women participation could mean building sturdy foundations for reconciliation processes that could potentially diminish the cost of war and armed conflict. Now who would really want that?

This article is part of a writing assignment for Voices of Our Future a program of World Pulse that provides rigorous new media and citizen journalism training for grassroots women leaders. World Pulse lifts and unites the voices of women from some of the most unheard regions of the world.

[This blog post was originally posted on World Pulse (http://worldpulse.com/node/49542) and on my personal blog ( https://therealrahel.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/maybe-women-shouldnt-be-allowed-to-be-part-of-peace-processes/)]

You won't believe this can possibly happen on a woman until you hear about the story.

In this conference about women and peace keeping in the great lake region, I listened to the testimony of an African woman in the region. She was speaking calmly and confidently about what role of women should play in building peace. I could not imagine what she has been through. She was the wife of a political figure. She was being raped during war time and her husband was killed during that time. She is so brave, to come up on the stage and share with audiences her painful experience. She shared it because she wants people to know about it, and stop similar incident happening to other innocent girl. 

It is hard to imagine that women's body is used as a battlefield during war time. 60% of the rape cases are committed by law enforcement officers. They are being raped by those who are supposed to be protecting them. 

I could not believe that there are actually a lot of places in the world where women are treated unfairly in a ridiculous way. A lot of women in the world have no access to sanitary pad. During the time of their period, they are not allowed to socialize with other. Worst, women are held upside down by tying their feet up in the air, in order to drain the blood. It is heart-wrenching to imagine the scene … 

It is shocking to hear about all these. I have been working on a global peace movement known as masterpeace, the progress of setting up the Hong Kong Club has been really slow. I guess I figure out why me or my other colleague are procrastinating – we don’t see the urgency of promoting peace because we are too lucky to live in such a peaceful society. We are just not aware of the conflicts, unfairness and wars happening around us. We couldn’t imagine the scene that people are living a life without peace but fear. 

The panel of the meeting is calling for grassroots’ movement to build peace. 
I am not a great woman, but I think I am going to contribute my little effort to help build peace around the globe. Keep checking out for Masterpeace, we, HKers, can be one of the peace-builders making the world a peaceful place! You can make a difference !