NEPAL'S CA ELECTION: POLLING COMPLETE

UNCLAS KATHMANDU 000449 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PTER KDEM NP SUBJECT: NEPAL'S CA ELECTION: POLLING COMPLETE REF: KATHMANDU 438 First-Past-the-Post Update -------------- ¶1. On April 19, the two final constituencies concluded voting for the April 10 Constituent Assembly (CA) election. As of noon local time on April 21, the Communist Party of Nepal - Maoist had secured a full half of the 240 total first-past-the-post seats contested in the CA election. The Election Commission has announced the results for all but one of the seats. Maoist - 120 seats; 50 percent Nepali Congress (NC) - 37 seats; 15.4 percent Communist Party of Nepal - United Marxist Leninist (UML) - 33 seats; 13.8 percent Madhesi People's Rights Forum (MPRF) - 29 seats; 12.1 percent Other Madhesi parties - 13 seats; 5.4 percent Minor left parties - 5 seats; 2.1 percent Independents - 2 seats; 0.8 percent Proportional Representation Update -------------- ¶2. Counting for the 335 proportional representation (PR) seats is ongoing. The distribution of current PR votes is as follows: Maoist - 30.8 percent NC - 21.5 percent UML - 20.8 percent MPRF - 5.7 percent Other Madhesi parties - 4 percent "Royalist" parties - 4.4 percent Other (including minor left parties) - 12.8 percent Significant Loss -------------- ¶3. Mahanta Thakur, chairman of the Terai Madhes Democratic Party, lost to an MPRF candidate. Thakur is the only one of the three United Democratic Madhesi Front leaders not to win a seat in the CA. POWELL