Over 17m potential voters. A touch above 137,000 candidates. More than 35,000 positions up for grabs. The May 17 local elections will be a gargantuan undertaking any way you look at it.  

The ruling alliance of Nepali Congress, CPN (Maoist Center), CPN (Unified Socialist), and Janta Samajwadi Party have nominated common candidates in most local bodies.

The main opposition, CPN-UML, has also stitched alliances with small parties like Loktantrik Samajwadi Party and Rastriya Prajatantra Party in some places, even though it is contesting major mayoral and municipal seats on its own.

There are also many promising independent youth candidates this time. Rapper and structural engineer Balen Shah, for instance, is running for mayor of Kathmandu. Ganesh Paudel, another independent, has filed candidacy for mayor of Pokhara. “Such youth candidates give local elections a breath of fresh air,” says civil society leader Shyam Shrestha.

Some provincial lawmakers are also in the mayor and chairperson race. Provincial lawmakers resigning to contest posts at the rural municipality level shows “how important the third tier of federalism has become,” says Shrestha. This, again, is “something to be celebrated”.  

But Shrestha is troubled by the ‘coalition culture’. So is Krishna Pokharal, a political scientist. “Even though there are plenty of independent candidates in the fray this time, electoral alliances have greatly reduced the options for the voting public,” he argues.   

Yet Pokharel still expects many new faces to emerge from the May 13 polls. In the previous local-level by-elections in 2019, people had thrown out many incumbents. “If they could so harshly evaluate their representatives in such a short time, I am expecting an even closer scrutiny this time.”

One thing is for sure: we are in for plenty of nail-biters. 

Also read: The May 13 vote at a glance