PR electoral election program to begin from December 6

After completing the registration of political parties at the Election Commission (EC) for the upcoming March 5 elections, the EC has now announced dates for the registration under proportional representation (PR) electoral system. The PR electoral program will officially begin on December 6. For this, the EC has established the Office of the Election Officer at Bahadur Bhawan of its Kantipath based office. 

As per the election schedule approved by EC, political parties are required to apply from December 7 to 9 between 10 am and 4 pm for PR registration. The final list of participating  political parties will be published on December 10. 

Additionally, political parties are required to submit their closed lists of proposed PR candidates between December 28 and 29. The final lists of candidates will be published on February 3, 2026. 

For the PR elections, EC Secretary Mahadev Pantha has been appointed as the Election Officer and Joint Secretary Yagya Prasad Bhattarai as Assistant Election Officer. A total of 41 staff members have been deployed for its management. 

On the occasion, Acting Chief Election Commissioner Ram Prasad Bhandari explained that the selection of representatives under the PR system will follow a specific formula defined by the law. For proper implementation, the EC will coordinate with the National Statistics Office to verify such data, said Bhandari.

In the PR system, political parties must include people from different groups, such as ethnicities, regions, genders etc., in proportions that reflect the country’s population. For instance, Section 28 of the House of Representatives Election Act requires political parties to ensure that at least 50% of the candidates included in the PR closed list are women.   

This March 5, the representatives for the House of Representatives will be elected through two systems: direct voting, also known as first-past-the-post (FPTP) and PR election. 165 members will be elected directly. The remaining 110 will be nominated through the PR system. 

For the direct voting system, the date for filing nominations has been scheduled for 20 January.