Innovations for Successful Societies
	





AN INITIATIVE OF
THE WOODROW WILSON SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 
AND THE BOBST CENTER FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE



Series: 		Elections
	
Interview no.:		ZH3

Interviewee: 		Bhojraj Pokharel		

Interviewer:		Rushda Majeed

Date of Interview:	4 July 2011

Location:		Kathmandu
			Nepal
					
	




Innovations for Successful Societies, Bobst Center for Peace and Justice
Princeton University, 83 Prospect Avenue, Princeton, New Jersey, 08544, USA www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties


MAJEED: 	This is Rushda Majeed on 4th of July, 2011. I am with Mr. Bhojraj Pokharel in Kathmandu, Nepal. Mr. Pokharel has kindly agreed to an interview with us to speak about his experience as Chief Election Commissioner of Nepal. 

	Mr. Pokharel, why do you believe you were chosen to head the election commission?  

POKHAREL:	This is a difficult question. Probably the people who accepted me in this position can better answer this question. At that time, this position was not my priority. Several times I had turned down this offer, but again and again I was asked. Basically at that time I was still reluctant. In our final meeting, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala told me, "You are known in this country by all sides, because this country has given you recognition. So now, when the country demands your service, you cannot refuse. It is your duty to give your time for this historical event." That is how I was forced to accept this position. 

	At the same time, Koirala told me that I was the only candidate agreed on by everyone for that position. During my conversation with Pranchanda, the chairperson of the Maoists, at a later stage, he acknowledged the same thing. He told me that because of my democratic credentials and my past performance in the public service, and my honesty and integrity in the profession, I was selected for the position--that those were the key factors.  

	These are the things that the people who had agreed on my name have shared with me, so I have to believe these could have been the reasons why I was selected.

MAJEED: 	Thank you Mr. Pokharel. I understand that to become an election commissioner, one first had to be recommended by the Constitutional Council and then voted on by the parliament. What individuals comprised the Constitutional Council?

POKHAREL:	In our 1990s constitution, we tried to protect certain constitutional positions to make them above politics. The vision of the constitution was the selection of people who had no self-interest.  That was the vision of the constitution. Accordingly, there was a provision in the constitution for the Constitutional Council headed by the prime minister. The members were the chief justice of the country, the speaker of the parliament, the opposition leader in the parliament, and the chairman of the upper house of the parliament, because at that time we had a bicameral parliament. Those were the five members in the Constitutional Council. But right now, under our interim constitution, passed in 2007, we have the prime minister, chief justice, speaker, leader of the opposition in parliament, and three ministers appointed by the prime minister. These are the persons in the Constitutional Council now. 

	Let me give you a little bit of background. In 2003, when the position of Chief Election Commissioner was vacated, at that time the Constitutional Council  recommended my name to head the Election Commission, but the king at that time held the file for more than three months. It was forwarded to him just to make the announcement, because the king was the nominal head of the state. I don't know why he didn't agree with my name, but gradually he started to pressure the members of the Constitutional Council to drop my name and to replace it with one of his trustees. 

	So that's the way that my name was dropped, unconstitutionally, by the king, and I guess that also could be one of the reasons for your first question about why I was selected, why I could have been one of the probable strong candidates for the Chief Election Commissioner. 

MAJEED: 	When you first became the Chief Election Commissioner, can you recall what you envisioned the elections would look like?

POKHAREL:	I was lost, totally lost at that time, because I joined the Election Commission the very day I was appointed. When I was appointed, there was nothing: nothing in place technically, legally or conceptually. There was nothing. The people only knew the words "constitutional assembly." But what it meant, what type of system it demanded for the election, or who would be the participants, who would organize it, what would be the processes and mechanisms, there was nothing. It was at a zero level. 
	
	The biggest threat to me at that time was realizing the limited time factor that I was given to conduct this election, about eight months' time. Would it be possible? Would it be possible to design the policies from the zero level, including the constitution, followed by the legislation and other details, and to manage all the things and conduct the election within the required time, in an extremely adverse security situation? The psychological fear among the people was so bad. For more than ten years, nobody had gone back to the villages. Nobody knew about the people, their aspirations. It was such a difficult situation to consign it, to consult, because of the total gap in understanding of the system, the process; and secondly, without knowing the behavior of the political actors including the Maoists who were new to the election process, and the behavior of the Maoist PLAs (People's Liberation Army) and the fighters--because they were trained to fight, they were not trained for the electoral process--so what would be their behavior? How would they behave? Who would be controlling them? How that would be managed? Those were the concerns. I was totally lost, I was totally lost in the beginning whether I would be able to deliver the elections or not.      

MAJEED: 	You mentioned just now that security was one issue, and also time constraints were another. Can you recall any other threat to the successful conduct of elections? 

POKHAREL:	The situation was a little bit difficult but I was completely hopeful, hopeful in the sense that the constitutional assembly was the dream of this country. All the political forces were for change. They were totally committed to the constitutional assembly's election. I was hopeful that all these forces that were for positive change, would get together to ensure that the agenda was fulfilled. Because of that I was confident, in spite of several difficult limitations, that the elections would get done and would be successful. 

MAJEED: 	Very good. In order to hold the elections you needed legislation governing the rules of conduct. The parliament also needed to pass this legislation, and the Maoists did not formally have seats in the parliament, yet you wanted Maoists to be key partners in the process. So how did you ensure that the Maoists had a voice in the design of the legislation?

POKHAREL:	Interesting question. As I told you in an earlier question, there was a total gap, there was nothing. Nobody knew what to do, how to do it, who would participate, and all those issues. Major questions had to be answered. But to answer these macro level policy issues, we needed all the key partners together. At that time the Maoists were 50% of the peace process. The challenge to me in the beginning was, how I could ensure that the policy gets through without the direct involvement of the 50% partner. 

	Tomorrow, if they are seriously involved in the process once we start and if they didn't agree once they came to the mainstream, then what will be the future of all the processes that we have done? So those were the major questions in the very beginning. But I'll share with you how I tried to overcome the problems and how I tried to keep them in good faith and confidence and take them into the process. 

	I followed different strategies. In the very beginning, I started with an informal consultation with the key leaders of the Maoists. Just take, for example, Prachanda (Puspa Kamal Dahal), the chairperson of the Maoist Party, and Baburam Bhattarai, the second in command. With both of them I had a series of long discussions. I told them that by virtue of the constitutional assembly (CA), I have been asked to implement your agenda. You are not in the mainstream of politics at the moment, so how I can truly implement the spirit of your agenda?
                          Could you please share with me what vision you have, what views you have, what expectations you have. All those discussions I had from the very beginning. 

MAJEED: 	Which part of the year was this? When was this?

POKHAREL:	It was in 2006, around the end of October. It was within one week of my appointment. I had to consult first with the Maoists, to understand them, and to know their moods; otherwise I would be doing a futile exercise. During the discussions we had many very open discussions. Before that time, they were not open. It was not easy to have a meeting with them. There was special security. Anyway, I didn't limit myself only to those two leaders, but gradually I had a series of informal consultations with other Maoist leaders also. So first were the informal consultations. 

	Secondly, from the very beginning I formed an All-Party Committee to discuss the probable policies: electoral policies, electoral laws, other policies, other discussions. So the Maoists were one of the members in this committee also. This was the first time in any government effort that Maoists were integrated in the process. In all those party committees they were actively participating and we were getting their views. 

	Thirdly, at that time we had an eight party mechanism. All of the senior, top-most political leaders of seven political parties and the Maoists, were in that mechanism. So whenever there were macro level issues, I used to throw those policy issues to that committee. At that level, issues were discussed so I could try to get an integrated view of all the political parties, including the Maoists. 

	Fourthly, most of the time I used both the prime minister and the home minister. The home minister, himself, was the key negotiator with the Maoists. So whatever the message was, whenever I had an opportunity to meet or to see the home minister, then I was trying to institutionalize my process through the home minister up through the prime minister.     

MAJEED: 	And the home minister was?

POKHAREL:	K.P. Situla, Krishna Situla. So whatever the message I was delivering to them, they shared those messages with the Maoists. They were discussed and I got my answer from the prime minister or from the home minister. That made me much  stronger, because I was doubly insured. Once it filtered through, I was given the answer from the government side and it became easier for me. So these are some of the strategies that I had to follow to get them fused. I'm happy that all these strategies worked well. This is the way all their views became integrated in electoral policies. 

MAJEED: 	Thank you so much Mr. Pokharel. In terms of the electoral code, what did the Maoists most want to see in the electoral code that the other parties opposed, and conversely, the other side of the coin is, what did the Nepali Congress and other political parties want to see in the electoral code that Maoists opposed?

POKHAREL:	Well, one of the traits of our working style is that we used to invite all the concerned parties when developing any policies, including the code of conduct. I had invited several key stakeholders immediately after my appointment, the civil society players, the media, the political leaders, the professional organizations--all of them were invited to a discussion about the code of conduct.

	In all of the meetings of the civil society some key civil society leaders and political leaders and political thinkers warned me about why I needed the code of conduct. "This is not an election that is being conducted to form a government. This is an election to change the system, to change the regime, so why are you trying to create a barrier to the political parties who are pro changes?  Don't try to make a limit, let them go free." So even at that level, also, I had feedback. I didn't accept those suggestions at that time. 

MAJEED: 	This feedback was coming from?

POKHAREL:	The political thinkers, political scientists, even from some of the members of the civil society.  But that time I didn't take it because I was thinking, "Let me try to have a model election in Nepal so that future generations can follow the path that I had created in this country." That was the sentiment in my mind. So I forgot the context, I forgot the participants, I forgot the stakeholders. I was trying to limit myself to how I can deliver a model, the best election in the country. For that I needed a code of conduct to state what is to be done and what is not to be done. 

	But all the political parties had already tried the political processes in the past, so they knew what worked and what did not work and what had worked. They were trying to bring all these details to the code of conduct. However the Maoists were a little bit afraid and concerned, because an election was a totally new thing to them. They thought, "Since we are entering for the first time in this business, other political parties have a sufficient number of people who know about the election and the political races, but people will not understand about the Maoists political party as a political party." Their feeling was that, "All the details of the code of conduct are to limit us, to tighten the screws to us." That was the feeling of the Maoists. 

	Basically, in some areas there were a lot of limitations. We tried to limit what political parties could write on the public wall, something like that. There was so much detail in the code of conduct, the Maoists were a little bit concerned that  other political parties were trying to limit their way. They were also concerned about the cost factor. Since this was the first election for them, they hadn't any idea how much the election would cost, and they were trying to limit the election costs and candidates' election costs. Whereas, the NC and other political parties knew how much it cost. You know how the political parties, basically in principle, have different opinions, and it was our duty to try to include them and their opinions. Finally we were able to get agreement about the code of conduct by all the actors. 

MAJEED: 	You've said in the past that it was hard in the beginning to convince the Maoists of what an election means and what details it demands, and what the technical things are. You've already mentioned this a little bit during our interview right now, but I'm curious as to why it was so hard and how you went about explaining the elections to them.

POKHAREL:	Well, because of the noninvolvement of the Maoists in the electoral process in the past, the Maoists had the feeling I sensed during the different discussions, that if there is a political understanding, if the political parties agreed to do something like that, then those things could be done easily. Why do you need so long a time? Why do you need three or four months? 

	Even during March and the first week of April, before the cancellation of the June election, people had the feeling that, "Why do you need such a long time? Once we all agree and we'll all give policies, then you can come up with the election within one and a half months' time." So they had not any idea about the logistical issues and other preparations, other managerial issues. Because of the lack of knowledge, they had the feeling that once there is political understanding, elections can be conducted immediately. 

	This is the reason why it was was hard to make them [the Maoists] understand what are the processes, what are the mechanisms, and why we need time. What are the petty details to conduct an election? How much time do we need to conduct the voting, the voter registration, the campaign, voter education, training, mobilization? But a whole bunch of things on the Maoists' minds, I guess, was that because of all the time-taking processes, probably the present assembly election would not be conducted in the country. So that was their main concern.  

MAJEED: 	That was their fear.

POKHAREL:	They were afraid that if it was delayed, the election for the constituent assembly might be lost. Because of that, at any cost, let us have the election. That was their spirit in the beginning.

MAJEED: 	How did you explain to them-you said that there were a number of technical things, logistical issues, voter lists and so on, that they didn't understand. How did you explain to them?

POKHAREL:	I made several presentations. I invited all the political leaders, parliamentarians, the prime minister, the cabinet members, and even the civil society leaders and the media, to explain what are the things that we have to do, how much time it will take for the election, and why we needed this level of time. With the level of clarification we were giving in person, through the media and through the deliberations in our meetings, gradually everybody did understand. Once they heard the logistical issues, everybody understood that.

MAJEED: 	Thank you. Now when the interim constitution was passed in early January 2007, did it specify what voters would cast two ballots for the first past-the-post system and one for the proportional system? If it did, then what other issues remained regarding the electoral system? If it didn't, what did it say that the electoral system would look like?

POKHAREL:	The interim constitution just highlighted, just mentioned, the macro level electoral issues. For example, "The constituent assembly election will be conducted in the mixed electoral system." That was the only language, number one. Number two, the total number of seats were mentioned like, "205 from the FPTP, 204 from the proportional representation and 16 members will be nominated. That means there will be 425-member constitutional assembly." This was the second. 

MAJEED: 	So it specified 425 and the breakdown.
POKHAREL:	The 425 from 205, 204 and 16 for 425. Thirdly, the constitution dealt with the qualifications of the voters: "18 years of age and the cut-off date will be mid December 2006." That was the third. The constitution also indicated the macro level policy. The constituent assembly would be, "an inclusive body, comprising women, the people from the remote areas, from the Madhesis and Terai, indigenous populations, and also Dalits - a highly marginalized and backward population in Nepal, referred as untouchable in the past." Just that. But there were other things it was totally silent about, to be clarified by and interpreted by the electoral legislation. So it means all the remaining details were left to be clarified by a future electoral law. 

	The following issues that I had requested were not answered by the constitution. I had expected that once the constitution had been delivered, these macro-level policies would be given by the constitution, so that we could do our preparation. As an example, within the mixed electoral system, basically in the proportional representation side, there are two branches. One is the mixed member proportional representation or MMPR or a parallel system is to be adopted. That was a macro-level policy that was silent in the constitution.

	Secondly, in the proportional representation, we needed to develop the list of the candidates. What kind of candidate list will you prepare? Will it be open or will it  be closed? There are different principles. That was also another major issue that was not settled by the interim constitution. 

	Thirdly was the issue regarding inclusivity. How to identify the different groups, who are those groups? What is their population? How large is the population? How to identify them?  What is the mechanism to identify the population who needs a specific representation for the inclusivity? What would be the status of the list that the political party would be submitting for the election process, if that list weren't inclusive? Would that be valid, invalid? We had the authority to say it's okay or it is not okay. That was a pertinent issue. Basically, does inclusivity mean inclusivity in the list of candidates, or inclusivity in the real representation? That was the big question. The psychology among the political parties in the later discussion, I found, was that there was more focus and concern to make only the list of candidates inclusive, whereas my priority was to make the selection inclusive, so I had a long fight with the parliament, with the different sectors. This is another issue we can discuss separately.
	
	Basically, with the issues relating to how to convert a seat, there are different formulas globally, like the Hare Quota, Droop Quota, or Sainte-Laguë method. But which method to apply to calculate the winning seat? Once you calculate the seat, there will be some remaining. How to deal with those remaining from the calculations? So these were the types of technical details. More than that, the constitution was silent regarding the ballot paper, whether a single ballot paper will be used or two ballot papers will be used. A political issue that was not settled was whether there would be any minimum threshold for representation in the further selection of proportional representation, or whether it would be open without any threshold. 

	So these were the macro level policies not dealt with by the interim constitution that I had asked the political leaders from the very beginning, the constitution drafters, to include. I know because of these issues, we were delayed. The constitution was supposed to be announced in November; however, the political parties could not come to any agreement on a macro level issue, basically whether it should be MMPR (mixed member proportional representation) or it should be parallel, whether there should be one ballot or two ballots. These were the two critical issues. Because of it the constitution was delayed.

	 I had warned the political parties, in person, in public, through the press, that if the constitution is not promulgated within a certain date of time then I would not be able to conduct the election. So that is the way I was creating pressure from my side. Finally they prompted it, the constitution. We had the constitution, but these macro level policies were not there, so it delayed the legislation for a while, because all these macro-level policies were not dealt within the constitution.  

MAJEED: 	Right. By the end of March 2007 the parties still had not reached an agreement on the legislation. This is probably because, as you mentioned earlier, the interim constitution did not deal with many of the macro issues. What were some of the remaining issues? I think you've described some of these, but if you can kind of re-cap? Then by March 2007 the parties were deadlocked over how to design a quota system to ensure that a certain number of women and minority candidates were represented on the proportional ballot. Was that one of the issues?

POKHAREL:	As I explained earlier, all the macro-level issues were left to be dealt with by legislation. Mainly the problem in the later stage related to the inclusivity. That took a long, long time to resolve. The mood, the understanding, of the different political parties, was different. Some wanted totally to make the inclusivity in line with the population structure in the representation, and some were reluctant to apply to that. Basically on the women's side, the political parties were trying to limit the representation only in the candidate list. They were not so serious about making the balance in the representation itself. So there was big fighting. This all continued until the law was finally promulgated, passed by the parliament in mid-June. 

	At different times all these issues were being discussed. Just to give you an  example, the political actors, the political parties and even the constitution at that time, had mentioned that the election would be held in June. Being the constitutional head, my duty was to follow whatever was written in the constitution. But once I saw the behavior of the political actors, the political parties who were not trying to resolve the macro level electoral issues that we needed to have resolved for the election, because of that, I had to change my timeline several times. Even at one point of time, I was asked by the press, "What type of timeline are you giving? What flexibility do you have, because the political parties are not doing their act on time and you keep changing your timeline? It means your original timeline was wrong. If it was right, why do you have to change it?" I had to change it five or six times. 

	So all the time, why I was changing the timeline was in the spirit that we should have the election in June. To have a June election, I needed as the basic entry point the legislation that would describe the electoral system, electoral details, electoral management, electoral processes and all those technical details. But the political parties were not coming to agreement. 

	So finally, around February, I started to invite the top political leaders, and I warned them, I requested them, I asked them, I warned them in public, in the press, that if these policy details are not finalized by a certain time deadline, then it is not possible that the election can be conducted. 

                          At that time they were competing with themselves. Okay, we'll go back from here to the prime minister's residence and we'll sit down together and we will finalize all the policies, and within seven days we'll give you all the answers. I waited for the seven days, but there was nothing. Again I waited for three, four, five days, but there was nothing. Again I said to the same leaders and I asked in front of the press, which was live. My question was very hard. "Today, you have to speak the truth to the people of Nepal about whether you intend to have the election in June or not. Give the right message. Don't deceive the people. In public, you are saying that the election will be conducted in June, but in reality, you are not doing any preparation." Give the right message. 

	"Without the intricate details, without the legislation, I cannot go ahead with what preparations I have to do. So, today you have to tell the Nepalese people the truth about whether you intend to have the election in June or not. They are waiting to listen to you. If you are not in the mood to go to the election in June, be honest. Be honest to the people. Honestly say to the people that it is impossible." 

	I had that question in the beginning, in that presentation. Then all the political leaders including the prime minister, who was the head of the state at that time, they were competing. "No, no, no, all the remaining issues will be written, resolved soon, whatever the cause, the election will be held in June. Whatever other things we have to do, please ask us, we are ready." Something like how their message was there, but in real terms, all these messages regarding all those technical things were not done. There are unlimited stories of non-action by political leaders that I have within that time.   

MAJEED: 	Did the parties come to an agreement on at least the quota issue? Which part of the year did they? Also the women and the minority candidates, how long did it take?

POKHAREL:	As I told you earlier we had the spirit, we had the constitution spirit.  

MAJEED: 	And the consultations you had started in February of 2007?

POKHAREL:	Yes, February, but internally we had started the consultation immediately after I had the constitution in January. But that was in public. More publicized was in February once I invited all the top leaders. But the crux of the problem was that the parties were not ready to answer all these questions. All the political parties had their own interests. The interests were conflicting because the NC much more wanted the line of the parallel system, when at that time, in the beginning, the Unified Communist Party, the Maoist-led communist party, was leaning toward the proportional system. The Maoists in the beginning were for the proportional system, and just for the moment were between.  Except for the seven political parties, the other five political parties were for the proportional, the MMPR system. So this conflict was very difficult to resolve. 

	Basically, gradually the discussions were there in our level, in the political level, in the top political leaders' level, at the various levels. But things tried to come to closure after I guess May, April. After April things tried to come to closure. But towards the end of March some of the issues that I referred to earlier were already resolved, but the macro level two issues were hard to resolve. 

	One was how to manage the quota system of inclusivity. That was the major issue. The second issue was whether to go to the MMPR or to go to the parallel. These two issues continued until the last moment. In May, more or less around the middle of May, things were settled. It was easier in the parliament so that parliament could decide these issues when finalizing the legislation. Does that answer it?  

MAJEED: 	Yes. You've answered the question. Actually my next question was also related to that. In mid-April 2007 you had announced that the June elections would not be possible and you may have already answered the question, but what were the factors or the reasons for this? I think you had mentioned that the parties were not reaching an agreement. You also said for the elections to take place the commission needed at least 110 days once all of the legislation was finalized before the elections would be held. So how did you come up with this 110-day figure, and why was it necessary to have this amount of time?

POKHAREL:	Let me again deal with the first part and then I'll go to the second part. As I indicated earlier, being the chief election commissioner, I had a duty; I was obliged to follow whatever is written in the constitution. In the constitution it was determined that election would be held by mid-June, but the date was determined by the government, not by the election commission. 

	From the very beginning I was requesting two issues to the government, to the political parties, to the parliament. I needed the policies, I needed the legislation so that I could make the preparation, and secondly, to the government, I needed the date. Without the date it would be very difficult for me to design the program targeting voter education leading to other preparations. Both of those things, the parties were not able to do. 

	Secondly, during a conversation in my first meeting with the then prime minister, who was with an oxygen mask in his bed, he told me, "Bhojraj, I am seriously, critically ill. I don't know how long I will survive. I'm confident that I will survive until June, so if the elections are conducted in June, I can see them with my own eyes; otherwise I will have to come as a ghost to see these elections. Seeing an election is in my heart. So that please, please, let me see in my lifetime, the  fulfillment of my lifetime wish." 

	That touched my heart. So I was working so hard. I was crossing the constitutional boundary to bring the political leaders, to bring all the political actors, to bring all the sectors together for the election. 

	Thirdly, whenever I met with the Maoist leader, Prachanda, in the beginning, his concern also was that if we fail to conduct the election in time, there will be additional forces, including the existing forces, trying to disturb it. If we delay to manage the election, nobody knows what will be the future of this election. So that by any cost, "Whatever I have to do from my side, whatever you have to do for the other side, please share with us. By any cost, let us have the election in June." 

	The day I was appointed, the Secretary-General of UML [third largest party in the interim parliament], Mr. Madhav Nepal, called me, and he told me that "Bhojraj, there are the resisting forces who are against the elections. You will get a lot of pressure not to conduct this election. Are you sure that you can stand against those voices, against those personalities, against that power?  I believe you can stand up to them and by any means, whether we work 24 hours or 48 hours a day, we have to conduct the election in June 2007." 

	At that time, those were the three main leaders who were running this country. Once I sensed the spirit of the political leaders, I thought, "No, this is my time. They have given me an open check. How I can cash that open check for the benefit of the country?" So I tried all the things. I pushed very hard, I reminded them. I pushed very hard on them to have the policy on time. I reminded what they had discussed with me, but there was the problem within all the political parties. In the top brass they expressed their commitment, but in the second layer of political leaders, no one was really for the elections. I sensed that. Whenever I was meeting the parliamentarians or other political leaders, those people were laughing and making a joke of me. "Hi, Bhojraj, how is it possible to have this election?" 

	We were discussing the electoral bill in the parliament to ensure the June election, but the same parliamentarians were joking, pointing at me, "Ha-ha, this is the gentleman who is trying to do the June election." Even in the government, the deputy prime minister himself was joking at a public program, "Ha, ha, I see you are trying to have a June election." It was simply like that. They were teasing  me. They were joking that the election was impossible. That was the mood. 

	So I requested to the political leaders, "Now that the time has already gone, and  the June election that was possible, is now not possible technically. It means that you are over-expecting. Why are you raising the expectations of the population? Tomorrow when, whether you or myself, will declare that elections are not possible and feasible, then what will be the level of frustration among the people? How will we manage that frustration? So please, try to be honest and ask the people. You are the leaders of the people. You have the right to say to the people that there are difficulties because these elections may not be possible. Please try to give that message." But nobody listened to me, because they were afraid to tell the truth. They were on the top level in the competition among the political leaders who would be blamed for not having the election. They were trying to get some political benefit from their inaction and whatever they did, incorrectly. But I was in a difficult position. Verbally I had to answer. I was the technical person who had to say whether the election would happen or not, because globally, people had to mobilize to send international observers or the UN to send their people. They were asking me, "You have to tell me whether the election will be held in June or not. If it is not possible, then let us know and we will not start to mobilize."  It was a difficult position for me.

	I thought that since I had a responsibility to this country and someone needs to be honest to the country, to the people, it was my duty to try to share the real situation with the people of Nepal, and that was very difficult. On April 9, the whole night I couldn't sleep, because tomorrow, once I announce that the June election is not possible, what would all these political workers who were so excited over the repeated commitment of their political leaders and wanted the election in June, what reaction will they have? Would we remain secure or not? All those issues were with us. However, as planned, on 10th April I made the announcement and thank God, the reaction was calm. There was not a single voice raised in the state.

	But the true expectation of the people of Nepal was that once we had the election in June, this country would have peace and stability so that they can live honorably in their places. That this would bring development in their country. That was the high expectation of the people, and that segment of the people was not happy with me, because the common people could not understand the double standard of the political leaders or why we were compelled to announce that the June election was not possible.  

MAJEED: 	So they were not happy with you.

POKHAREL:	With me, because they felt, since all the political leaders are ready to conduct the election, why did the election commission postpone it? Even my father, who was in the village at that time, already 90 years old, called me in the evening and he told me, "Son, you made a major mistake. All were expecting, were ready for, the June election. All the political leaders were sharing that the election would be held in June. Why? Why did you say the elections are not possible and feasible? You made this mistake." 

	See how the wrong messaging can fool the people? So this was the context. But coming back to the 110 days. That time, within the political circle, the top political circle, I heard the rumor that now that the political leaders have realized that June election is not possible, they are thinking to reset this June election to mid-July. It means a difference of about one month, a few weeks' time. My worry was that the main conditions and issues that prevented the June elections had not been corrected. So without realizing the reality, without realizing the facts, if the political leaders irresponsibly announce July as the election date, it will again be a failure, which is not possible. So I had to prevent that, number one.

	Number two, from July we start the rainy season. So if, foolishly, they announce the election in August, in August or September, it would not be possible to conduct the election. So we calculated back from the election date and we calculated how many days we need to have for the campaign, how many days for the nomination, how many would be the election time. Once we have the legislation, we determined how many days we will need to develop the law, by-laws, the technical guidelines for details, how much time we will need to develop the training and associated materials that are needed, how many days we will need to conduct the training, how many days we will need to develop the voters' education material and how many days will be making the campaign, all these details. Also, we calculated how many people we would need and how we would mobilize the people; we calculated how many days we would need to mobilize the people, because we had to mobilize people from different parts of the country to conduct the election. 

	So we calculated all the details, and we put in a little bit of margin to be in the safe position. That is how we calculated the 110 days. Mainly to prevent the political leaders from acting in an unjustifiable way, we had to make this decision.     

MAJEED: 	Very good. During all this, and you've hinted at this earlier also, how did you ensure that you maintained public support after the elections were postponed in June 2007? You had said earlier that one of the perceptions was that the timeline keeps changing, so why is that? Therefore how did you prevent public opinion from turning against the Election Commission then? Then also I believe the elections were delayed in November 2007.

POKHAREL:	What I have learned in my life is that if you carry the trust, if you carry the credibility, people will listen to you. People will believe you. People will understand you. This is the fundamental reason that why, even if that was expectation of the general people, that was the expectation of the political workers that we will have the June election; however, they agreed with us, with a few exceptions. 

	Let me give a little bit of background of it. The day when I joined the Election Commission the commission I inherited was, its credibility was below the zero level; not zero, but below the zero level. One of the major challenges to me was how to ensure an increase in credibility so that people will listen to this institution, so that people will understand the voice of this institution and people will believe the word of this institution. That was very much the thing. So the first decision, the first decision I made once I entered the commission, was that all the deliberations of the commission would be totally transparent and the media would have access. 

	In all my deliberations, the media was present. They knew all the details, so they were sharing in the commission's deliberations. All the Nepalese people were aware about our sincere effort. Based on my own knowledge and experiences, I tried to make all the process totally inclusive and participatory. From the second day in my office, I had around five, six, seven public events in my office. I invited every sector of society to hear me explain my difficulties, where I stand, and how I conduct the election in such an environment where I have nothing.
                          I asked for their views. What type of electoral system do you want? How do you want to see these elections conducted? What are your major concerns about this election? So we wanted to totally, frankly, openly discuss and negotiate all these things. Always the press was there, so all these things went out to the people. The consultations helped to build our credibility because the public knew what we were trying to do. From this process, it helped tremendously to build our credibility and for people to know what efforts we were making. The people knew what was preventing us and that it had been difficult for the commission to conduct its business. Also this is the first time in Nepalese history, I guess in global history, also, that I brought in the head of state. I brought the head of the state to my office and I, in front of the press, I questioned him, I warned him. I never visited any official's office; whether it was a cabinet member or not, they were in my office. If it was the prime minister, he was in my office. Whether it was the other top political leaders, who were like tigers at that time, they were in my office. 

	So with all these processes, I was able to create a certain level of trust from the people. "Well, this guy is trying his best so we should listen to him." Maybe it was other factors, other reasons, technical details, whatever we shared with them. What are the things? How many days will we need? How many days are left?  

	At that time I had given a few remarks nationally, through the media, through  public meetings, that the election I am going to conduct will not invite another conflict in this country. The election I am going to conduct is to resolve the ongoing conflict. So we need to be very careful that because of our own actions, our own mistakes, again we are not inviting another conflict. From that we had to be very careful to take care of all the technical details, because the election isn't only a political game, it is a combination of political, legal and technical games. All these messages were for the people and at a certain point of time, the civil society was openly telling us, to the country, that now the June election is not possible. The international community was also of the view that all the technical details were not ready and that the June elections would not be possible.

	The political leaders, second and third generations, were saying that June elections are not possible. That way we tried to create an environment where once I made the announcement, I was saved.  I was able to save myself and I was able to save commissioners. This is about the June election. We have another story for the November one. In November, technically, legally, we were 100% prepared. We had already assigned the returning officers to the district level, and their offices were open. All the election programs were open. We had conducted the voter education, the employees' training program, we identified the poll workers, all the details. We prepared all the materials, except ballots, etcetera, but the lesson I learned from November is that the election is a political game. Even if you prove you're 100% prepared, if there isn't a political will, elections will be impossible. The elections will not be feasible. So that is the lesson. We were prepared, we were 100% prepared, but politically the country was not prepared. 

	Basically, once we announced the election program, the Maoists put out 22 demands they wanted to see fulfilled before they joined in the November election. It was next to impossible to meet their last-minute demands, including  that the entire electoral system should be proportional.  

MAJEED: 	The Maoists wanted that.

POKHAREL:	Yes. One of the demands out of the 22 points was the Maoist demand to have a totally proportional election system. It was when we were preparing to take nominations, around the end of September of 2007.

MAJEED: 	Was it for the November election?

POKHAREL:	Yes, we're talking for the November elections. See the fun? But there were the political issues also on and from the day when the Maoists forwarded their 22 points demand. I warned the prime minister and the government, that this was the right time, that you must start negotiating with the Maoists for the November election. If you delay, if you lose a single hour, the November elections will not be possible. But our tendency is to wait to the last minute and the Maoists withdrew from the government. They declared their demands and, you know, all this created confusion, and it looked like the election was not possible.

                          So to be precise, one day before the nominations, around 10 p.m., I got a call and that call was from the prime minister. The prime minister said, "Right now we are in the negotiation process. It looks like it may not be possible to resolve all the negotiations by tonight. All the main political parties are here, but it will not be possible for us to submit our nomination paper tomorrow. So could you please extend the nomination date seven days? This is our common request."   

MAJEED: 	In October.

POKHAREL:	One day before the nominations, the next morning was the time for the nominations. At 10 p.m. that night, I got that call. I told the prime minister, "Prime minister, it is not possible. I cannot compromise because we already failed and lost our credibility in June. What is the guarantee that within the seven days we will maintain all those things, and that we can have the elections? So, it is not possible from my side." He asked me, "Please, please, talk with this guy." 

	On the telephone, it was Madhav Nepal, the UML leader. He repeated the same thing. "Well, we have been in negotiations. It has been difficult. I have the same answer to give. It is not possible. Don't try to persuade me, it is not possible." Again he handed the telephone to another guy and it was Prachanda. And Prachanda was a little bit tricky with his question. He started by saying, "Well the Election Commission has done all the preparations. We highly acclaim the work you have done since the peace process. We are trying very hard for the negotiations, but it looks like it may not be possible. Please extend it seven days so that we will be able to do our best." 

	Then my question was, "How can you guarantee that if I extend the date, and you will participate, that the election is possible?" Then he honestly told me, "I cannot guarantee that. We'll make a sincere effort. It does not mean that we can ensure that we will resolve all the things, but please reconsider." Then I told him it was not possible. Finally the prime minister told me that, "Tomorrow, if you insist on standing by tomorrow's nomination date, it is sure that all eight political parties are not coming to the nomination. Then, how will you conduct the election? Who will participate? How you can conduct the election without us?" It was a serious question for me, because we were trying to bring the Maoists into the election process. If the Maoists are not there, if the NC party is not there, then what is the point of the election? 

	Then I replied to the prime minister.  "I cannot decide this tonight.  I have to have a consultation with my fellow commissioners, also. So tomorrow morning by 8 a.m., you'll have to send me your request. A request later has to come from the cabinet. I need a cabinet decision to defer the date and please affix a document signed by all eight parties requesting the cabinet to defer the date. Then based on what I have discussed tomorrow morning in my office, I will let you know." This is the way I was making their life hard. 
  
                          But finally the date was not up to me. Constitutionally, it was the right of the government to fix the date of election. The government requested the seven days deferral. We decided to defer for five days. If within the five days the situation is not resolved and the political parties are not able to come to an understanding,  then the cabinet has the ultimate authority to decide the date. So they exercised their authority. In the morning of the nomination day, the cabinet decided that the November election was not possible. We requested the Election Commission to cancel all the processes it had started.

	Once the cabinet made that decision, I had no capacity to challenge the decision. Based on that we decided to close down all the processes. So in November, there were no more questions to us. Technically people did not question us, but some small political parties--we had 75 political parties--had registered to participate in the constitutional election. Those political parties who were not in the parliament at that time, asked us, "Why do you listen to some of the big political parties? You are a puppet of the big political parties. You should have gone to the election even if they didn't come. Let them not come. You should have continued to the election." I can understand their dismay. Most of those political parties were agreed to having the election.  Otherwise the people were silent, but through that postponement we, the country, lost credibility. 

	It was very hard after that to convince the national and international actors that again this country could have an election in the near future. Nobody believed us. It took a long time for us to revive all this and to bring them on board for the future election.

MAJEED: 	How did you go about doing that? As soon as you announced that the cabinet made the decision and you had to announce that the elections were postponed once again, what steps did you take to assure people that the elections will eventually happen?

POKHAREL:	It was a difficult position because without having an amendment in the constitution, we hadn't any right to say anything, because all the election dates,  etcetera, were mentioned in the constitution. The process was with the parliament. They had to amend the constitution and fix the date. But within the commission, the immediate action, indeed, was to cancel all the processes. We closed all the offices throughout the country that we had opened, and we reversed all the processes that we had done. So we were not focused on the technical issues. Publically we said that now it was a political game. If they reach understanding at the political level we can have the election. Otherwise, what can the Election Commission do?

MAJEED: 	So you said that in the media, for example?

POKHAREL:	Yes, the media. The people were concerned about all the effort that had been made, the loss of resources, the loss of time, the energy and tension. And even while the cabinet was deciding on the postponement of the election, exactly at the same time, the chief of the EU (European Union) delegation was discussing with me about the deployment of the short and long-term monitors and observers. Some of them were flying from Paris, from Brussels, from London, from different parts of the world, to come to Kathmandu for the November election. Internationally it was hard, not only nationally. How we can convince the national and the international partners that we will have the election? That was a big question.  But gradually, gradually, we tried to convince the people that CA is the need of the country, CA is the central point of the peace agreement. We need  peace. If we need peace and if we want to see the institutionalization of the peace process and institutionalization of the changes of the 2006 movement, then CA elections are the only mechanism we can make which can ensure all those things. This is the only option to bring the people who are carrying the guns to the parliamentary process, to the peace process. Those were the ways we were trying to convince them, but it was very hard.

	As for myself, personally, I was in the mood to resign that day. I had the resignation paper, but just before I was going to submit it to the head of the state, I got a call from the office of the prime minister that, "Oh, I heard a rumor that you are quitting. It is not your mistake. It is our mistake, the political parties. It is not because of you, but because of us, that the elections were postponed, so why  are you taking the responsibility by quitting the position?"

	I got the same kind of call from some of the former prime ministers, civil society leaders and other members of the international community, and I was persuaded like that. Since you have already initiated this process, why are you leaving in advance?

                          My team also didn't agree. I proposed that we quit in a group to protest, but I could not convince some of the members. They didn't agree with me. Why quit?  So finally I thought, well, since I was appointed to conduct the CA elections, why run from this process? So I failed to submit my resignation. I still have the resignation I intended in my records. This is the whole issue. 

MAJEED: 	You mentioned that you had discussed it with your team. Who was part of your team within the Election Commission? 

POKHAREL:	I had a five-member commission. I was the chief and I had four other members. The members constitutionally were independent, neutral, but in practice all the political parties divided the seats, though they were not active party workers. I had the team that was prescribed through the constitutional council, someone from the Maoists list, someone from the UML list, a person on the Congress list. That was the commission I was leading. Primarily in our system, all the decisions are to be made by consensus. Even if a single member disagrees, we cannot make a decision, it has to be unanimous. That is what the constitution says. Sometimes that is the beauty, sometimes that is the difficulty, in handling the business. 

MAJEED: 	How did you decide on the April 2008 date? Was it the cabinet that made the decision? 

POKHAREL:	The cabinet decided the date. But before deciding the date, informally we had consultations. Even for the November and for April, we were consulted.  

MAJEED: 	In terms of the April 2008 election, I understand that the parties made a pact that they would not resort to violence in the final ten days before the April 2008 election. Can you tell me more about this pact and its impact on violence on Election Day?

POKHAREL:	Well, I have to admit that in spite of all the assurances from the political actors, from other key actors, to make this process less violent, we failed to prevent it. In reality during the campaign we witnessed severe violence. The campaign process was dominated by violence.

MAJEED: 	Was the Election Commission responsible for the time before the election date in terms of controlling violence?

POKHAREL:	In technical terms, security is the responsibility of the government, of the Home Ministry. The commission is not responsible for the security. However, what was  the main cause of this violence? This violence was for the election. It means, indirectly, we cannot escape from being accountable, responsible. We were accountable for the code of conduct and other things that we had developed to make the campaign period peaceful. But the political parties did not totally follow whatever commitment they had made in the beginning.  We didn't attain a commitment from them toward the implementation of a code of conduct. It was their code of conduct. They developed it and they asked me to implement it. 

	So during the process, once we noticed the level of violence, then several times I invited the political leaders to my office and reminded them that this is the commitment that they had made.  Why are you violating your own commitment? It is your duty. The civil society was also pressuring them to check the violence. But the people who were trained to use a gun for the last ten years--we realized that by a single act of agreement, a political understanding, that mentality cannot be changed. That is the mistake we made in making the assessment in the beginning. 

	So I have to admit that mostly the Maoists and their cadres were in the front, in the front line. But traditionally in the past the campaign and E-day were always violent. Violence in elections is not new in this part of the world. What I sensed is that the traditional political parties were trying to retain whatever they had in the past.   For the last ten years other political parties disappeared from the public in the remote areas and the Maoists, being the new party, were trying to enter their constituencies. The Maoists had already made their constituency strong and the other political parties were not getting in. So that was the confrontation, you know. The Maoists were taking the votes from others, and the others were not ready to give up their constituency easily. That created the violence, the confrontation. 

	The Maoists were the stronger, stronger in the sense that they had the weapons, whether in the cantonment or in disguise. The other people were afraid of the People's Liberation Army. The PLAs were in the cantonment, but there was a complaint that some of the PLAs went out of the cantonment for the campaign. The Maoists had created a Young Communist League of semi-fighters. They were a warrior type people, and because of that others were afraid. There was an ongoing, continuous cycle of fear. The state actors, or non-state actors, were not openly talking against the Maoists, and even if someone tried to talk against the Maoists, the level of tolerance the Maoists had was too limited.  This is why the campaign period was a little bit violent. 

	To avoid all of it, we asked the security agency, the government, to be more proactive, but the security agency, itself, was totally demoralized. They hadn't  the capacity to take action when persons were violated because the security officials were afraid about their future. If we take the action against anyone, what will be our future? Maybe tomorrow they can take a counteraction to us. That psychology prevailed in the country. 

	So earlier we tried to proceed and I even warned them that if the violence continued like this we would be losing the game, the CA election and all of its agenda. If you three main political parties stick together, then nobody can do anything, but if you fight between yourselves, there is the possibility that your agenda can be closed. So with all those efforts and efforts from the civil society, there was a certain level of understanding with the political parties that they will try to communicate a message to have less violence. There was some backing off there, but I'm not sure they totally backed off it. But surprisingly everything was totally beyond expectations on election day.  

	None of the national actors and none of the international actors imagined that April 10 would be significantly peaceful. Even on April 9th, I had a press conference. Around 250 press persons were there, including the international press. I appealed to the people, "Tomorrow is the E-Day. We have made all the preparations. All of you will be secure, go and participate in the elections. We have developed all the security measures." When I made that announcement, the whole hall was laughing. They didn't believe me. "How can we believe you?" That was the counter-question then. "How we can believe that tomorrow will be peaceful?" That was the big question to me. 

	I was afraid, you know, but being the responsible person, I could not admit this. I could not say from my mouth that we will have violence tomorrow. I was afraid, but you know, I was confident for a few reasons.  Number one, I trust the people of Nepal. They had not participated in the electoral process for nearly one decade. Their total mind was for the election, because they had the feeling that the CA election would bring the peace, stability and development so that we could peacefully stay in our places and do our business. So that was the strongest force contributing to the peaceful election, on April 10th.

	Number two, the message we were trying to give to the people regarding our security arrangements, the plan was that within ten or fifteen minutes we would be able to deploy extra forces to control the violence. We were trying to ensure the safety of the electoral officers, candidates and the voters. That also created a certain level of confidence among the population.

	Thirdly, there was a certain level of understanding within the political forces, the political parties, that if there is a gross level of violence, maybe the elections might be spoiled. In that case, that would be against us. That could be the understanding, I guess. And lastly, on the part of the Maoists, I can guess that they might have thought that they had already tried all the tactical things for the election during the campaign. So it is time to remain silent, to pause, to allow themselves to remain silent. 

	So those could be. Another factor is the level of deployment of the observers whether they are the national, domestic observers or international observers. That had a huge impact. Around 1200 international observers were organized on this small piece of land. More than 60,000 domestic observers were mobilized. That also had a tremendous impact, psychologically, environmentally, to create a peaceful election. 

	Of course, I had to admit to the professionalism of our electoral staff, polling staff and the police officials in spite of the very difficult circumstances. They handled the situation professionally, responsibly and accountedly. So these could be the reasons why the election went peacefully.          
	
MAJEED:	 Mr. Pokarel I would like to shift our focus to talk about some of the issues that arose in managing the logistical preparations for the elections. The first thing I would like to discuss with you is voter registration. What, according to you, were the major issues that arose when you went to update the voter registration list and how did you overcome them? 

POKHAREL:	 First let me brief you about the context in which we were operating. The voter list is updated every year. That is the legal provision in our context and the persons who become 18 years of age by the middle of April are added to the list. Those are eligible voters for the coming year. Based on that date, the Election Commission in the past, every year, used to update the voter list. So we already had a voter list that was updated in 2005, April.

	Also the context was that generally it took about nine months to prepare a voters list. But for the constituent assembly, this time was too short. 

	The understanding was made among the political parties that the cut-off time for 18 years would be mid-December 2006. That necessitated development of new voter registration. At that point in time the Maoists were not in mainstream politics. They were not integrated at that time. There was no constitution. Even when the peace agreement was not formally signed, all the political actors, the political parties who wished further change, wanted to see the things very quickly done. But the problem for us was how we could integrate the point of view of all the political parties, including the Maoists who are not in the mainstream. That was a big challenge, because of our different mechanisms, including the informal consultations. That was the first time in Nepal's history that the Maoists visited the Election Commission office. That was the first time in the history of the Nepalese Maoists movement they entered any official space and they participated in official business. That was the office building of the Election Commission, and the issue was the election. 

	For us, as I told you earlier, there was no legislation, there was no law, there was no constitution, there was nothing. There was only the spirit, there was only the heart of the people, but nothing else was there. In our discussion, in the political forum, in the political parties' meeting, we included all these issues. Generally in the past it took nine months. Now the total time period for us was less than nine months, not only to prepare the voter list, but for the whole gamut of the elections. 

	Now it was not possible to expect a long period of time, so we needed to develop a certain strategy so that we could, within the limited time, collect and update the voter list. Let me highlight some of the issues and challenges in that context. 

	Because of the timing factor we told the political parties, including the Maoists, that since we have already a voter list based on a 2005 cut-off date, mid-April--that if we could update the list, based on the existing list, it would become easier to finish the agenda. But the Maoists did not agree. They had some concrete logical things also from their side. 

	As an example, most of the Maoists were either fighting in the jungle or they were excluded, once the people knew they were Maoists. Maybe at that time their names might have been excluded.  So they expressed their concern that if we based on the previous list, then maybe their voters would be missing on that list. But we, the Election Commission, were not in the position to start a fresh collection, so we made an agreement. Gradually, gradually we came to an understanding, and the Maoists, they also agreed to make the previous list a reference list, and that is how we started. So that was one of the major barriers.

	The second barrier was that since there was no constitution, when the constitution does come, we have to do the things before the peace agreement and the constitution said. The danger to our side is that whatever things are initiated now, what if tomorrow there is a contradiction in the constitution? So at that point in time, we had to make a lot of effort to bring all the political actors and major political leaders and get their commitment that those things which are agreed on right now, will be continued in the future constitution. We got that commitment from the political leaders, so we could assume that, okay, now we can make the investment and can go ahead.

	Thirdly, the major crucial problem was the time factor. The maximum allowable time to us at that point was a maximum of four months. Within the four-month period, at any cost, we had to prepare the voter list. To make the June election, we had to have it prepared. So that was another challenge. 

	Due to the ongoing insurgency, the continuing insurgency, all the offices at the local level, at the village level, at the community level, were mostly vacant. There wasn't any staff. Because of the security situation, the staff were either in the district headquarters, in the capital, Kathmandu, or in the major urban cities due to the security reasons. Even those who were in the government's records, they were there only on paper. Physically, there were very few staff of various government agencies who were present at the local level, whereas to conduct the voters' registration activity, we needed the people, but the people were not there. That's just an example. 

	We had 75 election offices, one in each district. Out of 75, forty district election offices were without their head. That was the case in the districts. That means more than 50% of the election officials were not in their districts. So that also made it difficult. How we can prepare the manpower, human resources, so that they can work? The psychology was so depressed among the people. Nobody was interested. Nobody wanted to take any risk, to go back to the community and work. The level of trust was too low. 

	The security associated with it was the worst, I don't need to say that. Almost all the police forces at the local community level were switched to the districts. They were sent to safer places. So there was no presence of a security official. Not only officials, or security, but there was even a big political gap in the community level. All the political leaders, including the workers, were not able to continue in the village, other than the Maoists. There was a big political vacuum. The challenge to us was how we could conduct this political process in such a background. 

	Also, you know the geography and our ability were both a difficulty. The topography, the geography, the different climate conditions were so difficult that because of it, the logistical, the transportation was too difficult, because in many ways we would have to accommodate when we will be working in which place, in which location. In the extreme winter, we cannot work in the mountain places. So we had to make our plan according to the weather and geography and the locations. 

	The most difficult part to me was that we needed massive technical and other logistical development. But at the district level, at the headquarters of the election commission itself, there were not enough computers, there was no fax, there were no vehicles, there were no printers. These are the minimum basics and without those, how can we do it? We had a very limited time window to prepare all these things.  These logistics and other equipment-related challenges were there. Even if we had the computers, printers, etcetera, we don't have the skilled workers to work in the places.

	Once the law was finalized, we needed to do massive work. We had to design the bylaws, the guidelines and more than 70 types of forms, formats, guidelines. These were such time-taking exercises. Preparation of these was the whole thing. We needed to print them, we needed to distribute them, and we needed to disseminate them. Those days the closures were regular, every day.    

MAJEED: 	The strikes.

POKHAREL:	Strikes, all the highways were closed, mostly all the highways were closed. So,  how could we transport, how could we send people; how could we conduct the program? There was acute shortage of petrol, of fuel, at that time. There was no fuel to use, even for the most urgent essentials. Also we had around twelve hours each day without electricity. We had to work on the computers. We needed the electricity, and there wasn't any electricity. There were other factors in this voter registration process. The limiting factor was that the constituencies were not clarified, because of the voter list we had to prepare based on the constituency. Since the constituencies were not demarcated, how could we make the voter list based on the different constituencies? These were some of the major challenges that we had to face, in terms of legislation or in terms of logistics or management. 

                          For the first few months, around two months, we slept just two, three hours a day; there was no time to sleep. Always we were thinking, we were discussing, we were finalizing the framework, the policies, the guidelines, mobilizing all the people. And even now, I am afraid to remember how we were able to accomplish that gigantic task which nobody believed could happen.

MAJEED: 	Thank you Mr. Pokharel. On that point which you just mentioned, could you give me a sense of how the process was initially conceived and managed in early 2006, when you went to update the existing voter registration list?

POKHAREL:	As I indicated in the first question, the major condition was the policies. At that time the age was not being discussed, the cut-off period was not being discussed, but the eligibility criteria was a major one. There were some other localized problems. Since more or less without identifying the macro level electoral system, again, it would be very hard to finalize the voter list. I bring up this issue because more or less, the rumor in the market was that probably Nepal would go for the mixed electoral system. In that case, in the effort to decide the voters, will it be the permanent residents? But on the proportional side, how to accommodate who will be the voters, only the permanent residents or others also? 

	In the beginning we discussed and finalized the policies like the 18 year old voting, and we decided, in consultation with the political parties, that we would
                          have both a permanent voter list and a temporary voter list. In the permanent voter list, those people on the permanent list would have the ability to participate in both elections, in the FPTP and in the PR. But further, for the temporary voters, we decided to give them voting rights only on the proportional representation side. It means we gave them a partial voting right. 

MAJEED: 	How did you decide who were the temporary?

POKHAREL:	It was because simultaneously various teams were working on the constitution, some were working on the political system, some on the election, like that. There was this strong coordination among the areas, political actors and us. So again, our seven parties plus the Maoists, that mechanism that was the supreme authority at that time, and we were discussing it. Once they finalized those things, they were implemented by the different sectors to further develop the policy.  

MAJEED: 	But who would be the people who were part of the temporary list?

POKHAREL:	Our intention in the beginning was that since in this election people are not just participating to select the government, but to design the future of their country, no one should be left out from this process. That was the public sentiment also at that time. All the Nepalese people, wherever they reside, they will get the voting right to build their nation, something like that. But the complication came once we had the mixed electoral system. According to the law, only the people who are permanently residing in that place can vote for that candidate in the FPTP. 

	Just take the example of Kathmandu. Kathmandu is such a city that all the Nepalese people were staying here. There were so many temporary residents because of the conflict, because of employment, because of schools, because of other opportunities, all the people were centered here. And if all those people were given the voting right here, in the FPTP race the locals would be lost. There were different levels of sentiment in the urban area. 

	There was such a high demand from all these constituencies, whether it was the students or media people or the employed. We needed to get the voting right. So there was a big discussion among the political leaders. Some were in favor of giving the voting right to all, and some were not in favor because it may spoil the total electoral system. Finally the understanding was that those people who are in the formal sector but were residing out of their permanent residence, let us include them in this temporary list. So the temporary list was comprised of the army, who were in the barracks, the police, the PLAs in the cantonment, the prisoners in the prison, and the employees who were involved in the electoral process. These were the five categories that were included in the temporary list, and they were given the limited voting right where they were. 

	That's the way we designed and we finalized that process. But this process itself created a certain level of tension and problems in the field when our people went there to actually collect the names, to update the names. Basically in the urban areas, many people like the IDPs (internal displaced persons) were not included. There were reasons why they weren't included by the political leaders. The IDPs had a big complaint about why they were left out. Students were left out. The business people who had come to do business in Kathmandu were left out. 

	We were totally attacked by them. In the beginning the Maoists had agreed with this principle, but once they went to the field they realized that oh, the majority of  these temporary residents belong to their voter constituency, and maybe we were misled to develop this policy. Our voters will be marginalized in the election. So that sentiment came amongst the Maoists' cadres. 

	In Kathmandu city, in Bhaktapur, and in parts of Lalitpur, there were instances when people who were sent to collect names were barely able to do their job. They had all their lists snatched, thrown out or destroyed. So that level of disturbance also came. There was a big concern from the media. They were asking "Why? We are the conscience in the society, so why are you excluding us?" But the whole principle of that time, among the discussions with the political leaders was, "This is an opportunity. Let all the Nepalese people go back to their community. They are the better-informed people. Once they are back in the community, they can better educate the people." 

	Number two, this would be a very good opportunity for all the people to go back to the community and become integrated in the community. So that was the political reason. Something we may achieve and something we missed. And thirdly, the major issue, the issue and concern in the process was that, who will be the enumerators? During the policy discussion it was a big issue with not only the Maoists, but even with the old political parties who were operating. The context was that there were no government officials in the field. According to people, government officials, even if they are divided, are regarded as neutral; however there weren't a sufficient number in the field to do this job. We even had to send from outside. So there were so many complications over whom to deploy for the voters' list collection. 

	While finalizing the policy, it was also a big issue.  But our policy, in the process we discussed and decided that in the minimum timeframe we have, let us deploy the maximum number of people in the field so that they can visit house-to-house and collect the names. For that we allowed about three weeks' time to go house-to-house with it. Mostly they went to the house or they went to the community. They worked together in some places. Enumerators were complaining that they had to visit around ten or fifteen times per house because the people worked in the fields from early morning and were not available. 

	Also, that was a good opportunity to mobilize all my commissioners and we visited the majority of the districts, building confidence and giving the messages. Voter education (VE) itself was a major problem, but we used 17 different languages. For each area we developed voter education materials, and simultaneously we got through it. Mostly at that time we deployed people in the community, who know the community, so that he or she will be able to get the assistance of the other people. 

	In the beginning, all of us were afraid that Maoists would not be cooperative, whether they will let other people go and work in the field or not. Those were the concerns, doubts, and everybody was afraid, but I have to acknowledge that they were fantastic during the voter registration process. We had built an all- party mechanism from the center to the field level. Even at the field level we had an all-party mechanism present in that locality that was supposed to provide backup assistance to our enumerators in the process. However, though other political parties were not as active, we realized that the Maoists asked their cadres in all the communities to go with them and help the voter registration process. 

	That gave a positive note during that time and it was an opportunity for them. They had been known only for killing people, but this gave them an opportunity to build a relationship within the community, a relationship with the other political party leaders and with the government employees, also. 

MAJEED: 	I believe that you had to re-do the voter registration drive because the Madhesis people stood up and protested that they had not been included in the first round because of questions over citizenship. So why did the first round of voter registration not seek to include them, and did you not suspect that this would be an issue later on? 

POKHAREL:	Well, I guess we had those things already in our mind. It was not totally a lost issue. Just let me give some background on it and also, discuss why this issue became more prominent. Once this country decided to go for the constituent assembly election, the first demand from the leaders from the Madhesis community was that the previous census was not correct. So before the constituent assembly election, this country needed a census. Based on that census, we had to develop all the policies including the representation in the CA. 

	However, for our part, a census is not a joke. In all countries, it takes ten years;  it is time consuming. Issues, time, preparation and realizing all those things we discussed with them, how is it possible? If you want to have the election in June, and if we're asked to do the census first, it means you are asking us not to go further on the CA election. So there were several negotiations with the leaders and finally they agreed okay, with some reservations.   

	Secondly, there were the concerns among the Madhesis leaders, or the among the Madhesis people, that for a large population of the Madhesis people, they don't have the identification, the citizenship cards, and because of that, they are being deprived of the different benefits, including being on the voter list. That was their demand. Maybe there were other problems, but that issue came up. Once we discussed the bill on the voter registration, by that time, in parallel, there was agreement among the political actors and us that let the government ministry, the ministry of home affairs, start the campaign for citizenship. The ministry of home affairs sent their team to all the communities to provide citizenship to those eligible people who were missing it. Once that is completed, the Election Commission will follow. That was the understanding. 

	But, sadly, I have to use the word sadly, the government failed to meet its timeline. The government was a little bit slow compared to us, and then we had a  tight timeline.  If we follow them, then we thought now the elections are not possible, because all the things were focused with the timeline of the June election. 

	Finally we reviewed our policy and we announced our policy. The government had not completed the citizenship process, but once the citizenship process is completed, we will give the opportunity to those people who have not been included in the voter list because of not having citizenship, or who acquired citizenship in the later stage and are missing in the first exercise process, to be included in the voter list. We announced it and we followed that process. This is the way, you know, we had envisioned it, but because of the multi sector working process used, it doesn't look like that. Did that answer the question? 

MAJEED: 	Yes, that did answer the question. More on the logistics side. How did you print and then distribute the bylaws, training material and registration form for the voter registration exercise? 

POKHAREL:	Well as I shared with you earlier, there was no electricity, there was no fuel to run the vehicles. There were no roads to run the vehicles on, because they were always closed. So life was miserable. But more than producing them and transporting them, the biggest challenge to us, the Election Commission, was how fast we can design, develop and approve. That planning phase was very much limited to us. 

	To share the reality with you that the day the voter registration law was finalized and the day we started to collect the voter registration in the field, the gap was one month and ten days. Within that limited period we had to develop around 70 plus formats, the bylaws, guidelines, formats, and print them in such large numbers, that there wasn't the capacity in the country to print that volume of paper. So what we did, we used all the country's presses, whether they were publishing the newspapers or producing the school texts, whatever, the government press, four or five government presses we used 24 hours a day. We made the plan, the transportation plan, that in the remotest and most difficult areas we would transport to them the first batch. So we made a complicated logistical and transportation plan. We did micro-level planning. I remember in certain northern parts, like the Solulkhumbu and others, we used helicopters and aircraft also, but because of the continuous bad weather for six or seven days the helicopter was not able to land. With the limited time, the window of opportunity was so limited that we had invited the people for the training to the district headquarters, but we were not able to transfer the training materials because of the weather. 

	Our people were intelligently prepared. They had received the master training. They had those training materials with them. They used them locally. They photocopied it and based on that they provided the training.  We had to conduct it like that. It was so difficult. If you visit the Election Commission building, we have one of the biggest compounds. Over the whole compound, we'd make a tent, a big tent, and there was 24-hour duty for the officials. Every day I was also there until around 1 a.m. in the morning. So I felt pity for those people who were waiting for the consignment from the press to dispatch to the districts. They worked so hard, 24-hour days. I haven't any idea about how I can manage to send things to all those people there, so wonderful were their efforts. 

	This is the thing. It was most difficult, but we have to manage with the difficulty.  

MAJEED: 	Yes. Can you explain why you relied on teachers to help you in the voter registration exercise, and why using teachers in this capacity was viewed by some as controversial? 

POKHAREL:	As I told you earlier, due to the ongoing conflict, almost none of the government officers and officials were present at the community level, at the district level. We didn't have that level of managers we needed to mobilize, to perform this job within the limited timeframe. So that was another major constraint to developing this policy. 

	Secondly, as indicated earlier, I thought because of the ongoing conflict, we needed the people who were already in the community. Teachers and health workers, with few exceptions, were still working in the community.  There was psychic fear among the other employees and officers from the district headquarters about remaining secure and not going to the remote areas. Since the teachers were continuing in the local community under such difficult circumstances, if I used those people who know the community, who had access to the community, who had the confidence of the community, it seemed this could be the best solution. 

	Then I put this proposal to the parliamentarians, but none of the political leaders  agreed on using the teachers in this election process. It is sad that our teachers are so politically divided. They are the political operators at the grassroots level. There is a great level of mistrust among all the teachers, not only the teachers, even the employees, because of the union. We have given union rights to the employees. They are divided, connected either with this or that particular party.      

	So the political parties were afraid that if the teachers who were members of either political party were conducting these exercises, there might be a chance that they would try to harass the other party's voters and would favor only their party. So that was the big mistrust, but the parliamentarians had given me the responsibility and I needed hands, I needed the people who could do it, so I had to guarantee that once they were working for the Election Commission they would be independent and neutral. The parliamentarians then said that if you are deploying them then you cannot deploy them in their same community, you have to deploy them out of their district. All those discussions were there. Finally they agreed. Also there was not only the avaibility problem, there was the cost factor, also. 

	If I had to mobilize the employees from other locations, it would cost a lot more because of the transportation, the per diem and all those things. For the teachers, we gave just a little bit of compensation to them. But even the school, the education ministry, was not happy to compromise the teacher's time because the exams were near, and there were complaints that if the teachers were involved in the election process, then how much assistance can they get if the teachers are sent? In the remote areas, there are only one or two teachers. So all those complications were there. However because of those reasons, we had to develop that policy, and thank God, that policy to use the school teachers worked. 

	On my mind and why I decided on this policy was that if I sent employees from outside, they will go to the community and when they come back if there are gross mistakes, it will be very difficult to hold someone accountable for doing  something wrong.  But if the teachers are there and if some names are missed or misplaced, then the community will know who is the teacher. "You made a mistake!" So the teachers would be most conscientious about that also. For these various factors, realizing the most challenging and difficult circumstances of the country, I had to insist on that policy.

MAJEED: 	In the same way then did you include health workers as well?

POKHAREL:	Yes, we used the health workers who were available, but in the beginning we used a minimum of workers. Most of the health workers were assigned the jobs of development secretaries at the village level. Most of the VDC secretary positions were vacant. VDCs were the legal officers to go to the legal proceedings. In our case, what we did, was to let the enumerators go from community to community, house to house, to collect the names and then come back to the VDC level. The VDC had to accumulate all those names and display them for complaints etcetera. Those were the legal processes that we had to finalize. 

	So to meet those legal processes and to work as the supervisor, we needed a VDC secretary. However, those positions were vacant, and nobody wanted to go  to those communities, so we used health workers and others as substitutes. They were assigned the job of VDC secretary, something like that. It was a mishmash.

MAJEED: 	Yes.

POKHAREL:	And another process I'd like to share with you. Because of the weather also, we had to do the voter collection process three times. First, the major, macro level we started on January 9. Second, for the high-altitude part, we developed the program around March or April covering that period. The third time we had to go again once the citizenship issue was resolved. So within this limited time, we had to do so much work to manage all these expectations and with all these problems. 

MAJEED: 	So you wanted boots on the ground, you wanted people at the ground level doing this, conducting the elections, but in terms of the voter registration part of it, were the health workers and the teachers going house-to-house? How did they do it? In what specific way were they involved in the registration process?

POKHAREL:	We had developed a separate committee even at the district level. We had  developed a committee headed by the Chief District Officer. Under his leadership, with the district education officer, the district woman development officer, and the district development officer, we made a five-person team at the district level. Within the given parameters, we asked them to find the appropriate people, to deploy them in the appropriate areas, and to arrange the training and logistic part at the district level. We tried to share the load at the local level. Yes, the teachers and some health workers involved in the process visited house to house and to communities for the voter registration. 

	Secondly, that committee also held informal consultations with the political parties and party mechanisms at the district level. However, whatever the level, we tried to ensure that it was neutral. In some places, another political party did not agree with the names that were selected by the so-called unbiased committee. They said they didn't trust the teachers. The teachers were not allowed to go to the village and conduct their business, even though they had already been given their appointment letter and they had been assigned to the villages. 

	In that context we had to do a lot of political consultation and negotiation. In some of the places, even the district education officer was tilted to a single party.   However, finally all those things passed with negotiation. Things were found that worked.  

MAJEED: 	Okay. 

POKHAREL:	We deployed around 23,000 enumerators who were picked out, who were trained and who were given all the materials. We used the Cascade Training Program. We prepared the master trainers in Kathmandu itself at the central level. We drew the people from the regions, and the people from the regions conducted the training program of the regions. They conducted the trainers' training at the regional headquarters, inviting the people from the district level. Those people went back to their districts and they conducted the training of the enumerators that were provided to other people. This is the way we conducted the training programs. 

	Regarding the collection process, once the names are collected in the community they are integrated because we send collectors based on the population and geographical distances. We deployed more than one person, sometimes two, three, four, five, depending on the size of the population in every village or in the municipal areas. Once those enumerators collected the names, or updated the voter list, then that went to the office of the village development secretary who was in charge of the village development committee. He or she will follow the legal processes and display the voter list for complaints and counter-complaints. It's a long process.

	Once they finalize all these legal processes, the list was submitted to the district election office. The district election officer had to compile the lists. If there were computers and electricity, they did this at the district level. For seven districts there was no electricity so all those manuscripts, the raw materials, were brought to Kathmandu. All were typed and finalized in Kathmandu and then verified by the district level officer. The finalized list is sent from the districts to election commission's headquarters where again, we try to cross-verify using the software that we had built to check for duplications. Even if among the people registered in one district someone wants to change his or her name to another district within the legal authority, we make all these changes at the central level. The list is then finally typed, verified and printed in the headquarters and again the list is dispatched through the region, the district and to the community at the village level. 

	Even at that time, because of the strikes and because of the little fuel available etcetera, we didn't have the paper to print it. We had to produce the voter list, we had to print it then, we had to send it in time for the election. Those were the logistical issues. So there were trucks and trucks and trucks filled with voter lists. In a big district, we had to use around a twenty-ton truck to send back the voter list, so this was difficult also. 

MAJEED: 	So Mr. Pokharel, you were talking about some of the logistical challenges in terms of even things like fuel and printing paper and so on that became an issue. How did you go about resolving some of those issues?

POKHAREL:	Well, mainly for the procurement side, the printers and computers cost quite a bit of money. Procurement is always a serious concern and a sensitive issue. If you are doing a big procurement, acquisitions are a concern. I needed to preserve my institution's credibility. If the credibility of my office were in crisis, it would be next to impossible for me to discharge my business. So, from the very beginning I made my mind up, that whenever possible this commission would not be involved in any procurement, and I'd ask the partners who had the capacity to provide those items to provide them for me. That was my thinking. That was my strategy. As an example, we, and the development partners, all had the same spirit that this country needed the election. Once there is the election, the country will go on to certain stability. So that was the concern also.

MAJEED: 	Who were some of the development partners?

POKHAREL:	The USAID (United States Agency for International Development) or DFID (The United Kingdom's Department for International Development) and almost all the countries: Britain, Japan, India, China, Germany, even the Nordic, Norway, Finland. A major donor was Denmark. All the countries present here were willing to donate to us, including Korea, South Korea. So we invited them all and asked them for the things we needed. "Our procurement process is time consuming and difficult so I didn't like to involve my office in this petty business. I don't need the money, but I need equipment, so my humble request to you is could you kindly provide the supplies I need." They were so cooperative. We were all sitting together at the big table in my office and the people cooperated with me and they were sharing what they were giving, how many printers, who would be giving how many fax machines. Even the donors had some difficulty in the procurement process; however, they were able to drop some of their procurement processes and provide us the material on an emergency basis. That was number one. 

	Number two, regarding the fuel. We tried to use the army and the police, armed police. Sometimes they operated the petrol pumps.  Wherever possible we tried to get help from them, but sometimes in a critical moment, they also didn't have the stocks, so that in place of trucks we were forced to use aircraft, even for the nearest and possible places. In some locations, we would start to send an item from here in trucks, in big vehicles, but all of a sudden there were these strikes so the convoy could not continue. We had to use the helicopters for transport to the locations, but sadly, in those places there were a number of places where the helicopter could not land.

	In some places then, in the nighttime, we, with the security agencies, agreed to impose a curfew on the highways, and during the night transferred the material. So those are the different ways, means, and possibilities. We explored all the possibilities of how to do the job.

MAJEED: 	Very good. If we can turn our attention a little bit to the recruitment and training of poll workers, can you help me understand in detail how you recruited poll workers and what were the criteria that you used?

POKHAREL:	Well, we had different categories of poll workers. Number one, we needed the people at the constituent level who would be working as the returning officers. The returning officers are identified in the legislation itself. Generally our political leaders or the parliamentarians, people have more trust in the people from the legal side. So in the law itself the provision was that all the returning officials would be drawn from the existing pool of legal officers. They could be the judges, they could be the public prosecutors, they could be the cadre within the legal services. Generally they are considered as neutral ones. So that was one category and in that category, in consultation with the Chief Justice of the country, there are certain mechanisms that the Chief Justice can use to deploy  judges in other ways than the judiciary, but there are certain constitutional provisions about how he or she can deploy. Those processes were followed and they provided the names to us. That is the way that we drew the returning officers, around 240 returning officers, to work as the chiefs in the constituencies. 

	Secondly, the presiding officers had the skills to manage and handle the election at the booth level. We needed around 22,000 presiding officers. We had around 22,000 polling stations. Our criteria in selecting those officers based on the past experiences with the seniority, was to try to get the maximum number of senior people to work as the presiding officers, again depending on distance, complexity and size of the population. All those things were considered. 

	We drew them from among the existing civil service and from among the teachers. Those were two sources, and then from among the employees who were working for government corporations. Those were the officials we took as the presiding officers. 

	The third category was the essential staff that would be handling the ballot papers, like the assistant presiding officers, to verify the names, etc. We had a committee at the district level, headed by the chief district officer and other key officials in the district, to identify them. 

	The people, the number of the people for every district was not sufficient. We had  collected the total list of the whole country, how many and which category of people we had. Based on that, if there was a shortage in one district then we had planned to send people from the adjoining district. If the people from the adjoining districts were not sufficient, then we would be sending people mostly from Kathmandu, or from where there is the highest level of stock. That is the way we had to plan, we had to prepare.  At the district level the committee was working actively to identify poll workers.  

 	But for the deployment side, for the deployment it was totally the returning officer. His responsibility in that constituency is to be accountable for the total election, so he or she is given the autonomy, based on their experience and all those things, to select the presiding officers and assistant presiding officers. 

	In these two categories we deployed around 126,000 people from the district headquarters. At the community level, this time we changed our strategy a little bit more. At the community level, you need people just to put the mark on the finger and to give the statistics like how many males, how many females and how many people there were. For that type of assistant, we developed a policy to hire from the local community. So this is the way we mobilized around 240,000 people, including around 108,000 poll workers who were hired in the community by presiding officers, for the April 10, 2008 elections. 

	But if in totality, if we count the people we trained from the beginning of the voter registration, it comes to around 275,000 people.  

MAJEED: 	Very interesting. For the April 2008 elections, did you use the same poll workers that you had initially recruited for the November 2007 elections?

POKHAREL:	More or less at the returning officer level, with a few exceptions, we used the same people. At the field level, in November, we had planned for, but had not passed that phase of deployment. We had given the training, but before we were supposed to deploy them in the field and identify their area of work, the elections were postponed. But we had identified the people already, so the list was more or less the same. We had a very limited number of people who were available and of those, all who were available were used. 

MAJEED: 	How did you then go about training the poll workers?

POKHAREL:	My goodness, it was unbelievable. You should have seen how the electoral process continued to change. It was so difficult for us to finalize the training materials. In the beginning we developed training materials based on the existing context. In the beginning we had the numbers 425, 205, 204 and 16 nominated, but that figure changed and the numbers were increased to 240 in the FPTP, 240 in the PR side, 17 nominated and 497 in the House. We developed the materials based on that scenario. 

	In the final status because of all the negotiations, just a few weeks before the election, again that was changed, and now the figures were 240 from FPTP, 335 from the PR and 26 from the nomination, and the House became a House of 601. How could we communicate the appropriate message? How could we keep the consistency? 

	We didn't want to confuse our poll workers. We were supposed to give them updated information, but always the challenge remained. This was just one example of how things kept on changing at the last minute. Because of it, designing and developing the training materials took too much time at every stage. Based on the existing legislation and the bylaws, we designed the training materials. The training materials were visual, audio-visual and in the book form, pictorial. We had to develop all those things while at the same time we were involving the probable master trainers in designing those materials. 

 	Once the materials were designed they were tested in the field, and based on that we provided the master trainers training in the Kathmandu valley, and invited the people from the regional level. First we prepared the master trainers in  Kathmandu, and for that we invited the trainers from the different regions. Those trainers were provided trainers' training and sent back to the region. Five or six professional trainers were available from the district level, to train them as  trainers. They were trained at the regional level and they were sent back to their districts and provided the training in the district. 

	The people who were in the field were trained by the presiding officers, since our presiding officers had to be in the field two days before the poll. One of the days was dedicated to further training, for consultation, preparation, etcetera,  especially with the political actors and civil society leaders in the village. Another day was dedicated basically to training the people who would be operating in the field.

	So this was the way we were able to train around 240,000 poll workers in less than a one-month period. In a 28-day timeframe, we were able to train that level of people and deploy them. Once we completed the training we had to give them the appointment letter, money, materials, and send them back: otherwise it would be so much costlier to keep those people in the district. This time we tried to be more professional. We developed our whole training package like that. Only 30 people were in a class, and parallelly four or five classes were run at the district level. 

	But the most difficult part was in designing and developing and printing the materials and making them available in the field. So that was the most difficult task.  

MAJEED: 	 Did you, when you were training the poll workers, did you receive any international or outside assistance?

POKHAREL:	Yes, the external partners were interested in funding every activity feasible. Sometimes we needed the external partners' money.  The commission had the flexibility to decide. It had the constitutional right so nobody can question it. Even though we didn't like to take money, when there was the external partners' money, sometimes if we needed the flexibility, it helped. For example, there are certain limitations in the government rate for accommodations in a hotel. Hotels are so costly.  In that case we asked the partners if they would pay for the hotel and the food. We'd pay some other compensation or something like that.  We worked jointly with the external partners. Basically in the last part, we asked them to print the files, folders, pictorials, materials, etcetera. So this was the way we worked as a team. 

MAJEED: 	In terms of the poll workers I understand that some poll workers were hesitant to work in certain regions of the country. What regions were they hesitant to go to and why and how did you overcome this particular challenge?

POKHAREL:	Well the situation was like this, April 10 was Election Day. April 7 was the last date that the poll workers had to be present at the polling location. In some districts, even on the evening of the sixth, nobody was interested in going to the field to conduct the election. The problem at that time was more focused in the Terai, because different insurgent groups were operating and they were terrorizing openly. They declared in the beginning that their main policy was to stop the election. If the elections are conducted, at any cost they will destroy the election. That was their open policy. 

	There were hundreds of small insurgent groups, terrorist groups, operating in the Terai at that time. So once we decided to continue the election, they were not happy. We did not listen to them, number one. Number two, in the previous election the Nepal army was the major force for the security. They were providing the backbone. We were trying to have a more secure environment. The situation was worse compared to the past. We were not able to use the army according to the peace agreement. They remained within the barracks. The security force that we were depending on for security was totally demoralized. That was the context. So people were a little bit hesitant about the security. "Are we secure?" Everybody looks out for his life. 

	Even just two weeks before the poll, an insurgent group openly made threats to all the people and the candidates saying that anyone who continues as a candidate will put his life in danger. Basically at the last moment, they threatened the employees, the poll workers, who would be conducting the elections. "We will target you physically. If we cannot target you, we will target your family. We will confiscate your property. We will kidnap you or your family members. So this is our position." In that context, who would be willing to go? There is no greater thing than life. 

	In the northern part, there were only a few points where there were some reservations from the employees about whether the Maoists would allow it and whether there would be danger or not, but people did not pay attention and they went there. But basically in the Terai region, seven districts were like burning hot spots. So operating in those seven districts was very, very difficult. 

	It was so difficult nearing the poll day that people were not interested in going there, and they threatened to resign en masse if we compelled them to go.  At a certain point in time, we used the moral authority that since you are a government employee, you are getting all the benefits and when you are defiant, your job itself will be taken. But even with that threat, they said they would resign en masse. So this is the reason why in those places, as an alternate strategy, we used teachers, because the teachers generally know who the insurgents are. They know the people. Mostly the disturbing factors were from the local people. Both of them know each other. The teachers told me that I did the right thing, because deploying them in the polling process, those people who were supposed to come and disturb the election process were discouraged, "once they saw our face, because they knew us and we knew them." So that was one strategy.

	The second strategy that I used for the first time in the history of Nepal-- not only Nepal, maybe in global history--I deployed all the government's senior-most permanent secretaries in all the districts to influence the psychology of the local people. My aim was to increase people's confidence about the electoral process, which I thought would happen if they saw that the big boss was in their districts; 
	"If such a big boss, the secretary, has come to our district for the election, then why should we not go. Let's go." To create an environment I deployed all the government secretaries. That also worked.

	And in those areas where there was not sufficient staff I sent supplemental staff. When people were not willing to go, even at the last minute on the night of the 9th, we made a decision to give all the authority to the returning officer and through the returning officer to the presiding officer. If sufficient people were not available in that spot, he could pay how much the other people demanded, and hire and use them. So we designed, we developed and we instructed, all those alternative strategies. Thank God that finally we were able to manage all the polling stations. 

	Even on the tenth there were the complaints from those districts where in the beginning people would not go, complaining, "Oh, we were interested in going, so why didn't you send us?" That level of environment was created within the last two, three, four, five days, and we were able to handle it. 

MAJEED: 	Very good. In terms of the polling places, how did you decide where the polling places would be located, and what considerations did you take into account when deciding that?

POKHAREL:	Well before deciding the polling places, we had developed the policy in consultation with main key stakeholders. For the polling stations, it was the political parties. We discussed it with them before we decided. Basically we framed our policy, and one criterion we had was the number of voters on the voter list. We had a maximum of 1000 to 1100 voters per polling station, because people had to use two ballot papers and we had calculated during the mock polling how much time it would take in eight hours for all the people to vote; based on that we came to the figure of 1000 or 1100. That was one.

	Geographically where the population is so scarce that to visit from one house to another takes four or five hours, there and back, so the second policy adopted was that for any voters to go and to be back it should not be more than five km with a few exceptions. So we limited it to a maximum of 5 km walking for the voters. That was the major second criterion. Thirdly, we needed to take into account the weather. Because of the weather conditions, we cannot work in the open space. We don't have enough sufficiently big seminar halls to conduct the polling, so we needed certain spaces. Another policy was that the polling locations couldn't be in any private entities. All the polling locations must be in public places. That can be either a school or the government offices or a community building.  

	Another factor was that since there was a large volume of people, how much  space would we need? There should be sufficient space. In some locations, even in the mountain area, we cannot get the biggest space, but whatever is feasible. Also when possible, we requested them to locate near a road head, near a telephone booth, near the electricity supply, so that the logistical management would be a little bit easier. So those are the macro level policies we conducted. 

	Further details were with the committee at the district level. The chief district officer headed the committee, which included the district education officer, the local development officer, the chief of police, and the district election officer. That's the way we created the committee. We told the committee that in consultation with the political parties, you should recommend locations for polling. "You go in the field, you see in the field, you make the provisions, and based on that we will decide." 

	Based on discussions at the district level, the district committees were asked to find those locations based on our policy.  The places came from the bottom up then back to us and then finally, based on the recommendations from all the districts, we chose the locations. So it was totally decentralized, we just formalized it. The political leaders and the workers at the field level did all of this.   

MAJEED:           Moving forward Mr. Pokharel, was there anything, any other steps that the Election Commission took in terms of ensuring the security of poll workers?

POKHAREL:	Well, one of the major, serious concerns at that time that I had noticed from the poll workers was that they felt their lives were threatened. So in addition to creating a more secure environment, we tried to promote some other policies so that the people could make up their mind. Since the level of incentive was on a little bit higher side compared to the past, the incentive itself could be an incentive.  

	Secondly was the level of security. The plan we had devised was to try to assure  the people that in case of emergency there would be people to assist them.  Thirdly, in the most difficult locations we didn't let the poll workers stay in that area. The whole day they were there, but in the evening we would collect them and take them to some secure place so they would feel more comfortable. That was another strategy. 

	In addition to all this, they were well insured. So maybe some of the people  heard that and thought, "Even if I lose my life, this insurance money can support my family." That also came in. These were the different types of psychological, monetary and non-monetary incentives we tried to devise to mobilize the people so that the people will be working from their heart. A physical presence was not the answer to address that kind of problem, or those concerns. 

	The whole focus of mine was how to go to the minds and hearts of my people so that they would participate freely and conduct themselves well, compatible with their beliefs and determination.

MAJEED:          One other question that comes up in an election-related context is did you take any steps to make elections more gender-inclusive in terms of hiring more poll workers that were women and so on?

POKHAREL:	This started from the top level in my commission. Our national policy was to have 33% women in all the public sector positions. However, out of five, we'd have  20%, one woman member. This was the first time in the electoral history of Nepal that we had a woman member as an election commissioner, so we started from there. 

	During the voter registration process, we tried wherever feasible to deploy the maximum number of women. In the election process, our policy was if enough women were available, 50% of the poll workers would be women.

	I'll give you one example why we developed this policy. In one of my meetings with the political party leaders, there was a woman representing a woman leader from one of the Madhesi-based political parties. She was more vocal, and she brought up practical issues from the field. One of the examples she gave was that the Terai is a more closed society. In that closed society, women are not as open. If you are deploying a male poll worker who will be touching her hand to put ink on her finger to see whether she voted or not, in that case he will be touching her hand, which is not acceptable in that society. It is not acceptable to the woman. That is the reason why participation is less in Terai. That touched my heart, because that was a practical thing she brought to us from the grassroots. 

	So immediately I decided that all the officials who would be using ink on the hands of the voters, would be women. As a result of that policy we were able to increase to 25,000 the number of female poll workers. That was sometimes how the process impacts the policy. These are the opportunities when a decision maker should take the opportunity to act quickly. These were the macro-level policies we used to balance or integrate gender. Not only the gender. My instruction was to include officers from sectors not integrated in the mainstream of the process in the past. 

	One fundamental impact we were able to make was in the voter education. When we were hiring the voter educators in the field, my policy was to send a pair of  voter educators to the community, and one must be a female. It means one male, one female. They were visiting house to house. This is the way we tried to address the gender issue and other issues in the electoral processes.      

MAJEED: 	You mentioned voter education just now. Can you talk a little bit more about some of the steps you took to educate voters about the upcoming elections?

POKHAREL:	 Nepal is a complex, difficult society. We have more than 91 ethnic communities, the majority of them have their own dialect, their own tongue. So one of the challenges to me was how to communicate the voter education message in their own language. Again, they speak the language, but they don't have a written script. 

	So what we did first to address this sensitive issue was to use whatever language they had in script. We translated our master document in all those languages. We printed, we developed audio-visual and videos, and we disseminated these documents accordingly. To disseminate those messages we tried to employ and involve the local community people who could better communicate, so the people could better understand. They had better access. We used 17 different languages to disseminate our voter education program. You see what level of complexity there is. 

	Secondly, the electoral system was always changing. The key components of the voter education, like the number received, the processes, all these were changing. So it was very difficult for us to develop, design and finalize the voter education materials.  The level of intricacy in voter education was so high, but my whole policy, my hope, was that none of the voters should be left out from any message in this process. 

	So what we did, we used all the media that we had, including TV and radio stations. We were lucky that we had more than 200 national radio stations operating throughout the country. We contracted out with them and provided the message, while simultaneously the local radio stations were giving the message.   We used all levels available. Because of the limited timeframe, one inventive approach we devised was a very excellent flip chart with all the key messages, visual messages and wonderful photographs. 

	We hired two voter educators, two local teachers from the community, one male, one female. Priority was given to the people who could speak the local language of that community.  Those two voter educators were given limited areas and went house to house. Whenever possible in the community, they would go where the people would collect together whether at a tea stall or other common places and using the flip chart, they would explain. That is the way we tried to bring voter education to the people. 

	During that process we thought of another way to attract the voter. We offered a special invitation letter to all the voters. We addressed the invitation to the head of the house and in that letter we humbly requested them to use your vote to make your country's future, this is an historical time. The language was something like that. Also we gave key messages in that letter. Number one was the election date, number two was the location of the election booth or station, and number three were the serial numbers of the family. Also we requested them to please come with this letter to the poll booth so that it would be easier to find their names on the voter list. 

	So the front page was from the Election Commission and on the back we put the responsibilities of the voter in simple language about what to do and what not to do, the do's and don'ts, such as, you should reject any offer to buy your vote. Your obligation is not to sell your vote, but use your own ideas to select the candidate. That is the type of message we gave. 

	It was a bit complex to design, to develop and to disseminate those letters and to give the appropriate message, but it worked well. Basically the people felt honored that the Election Commission sent a private invitation to come to the poll. Most of the people saved it for their scrapbooks, they felt so proud. So this is the way we devised different methodologies to communicate the appropriate messages in a limited timeframe. Also the civil society was actively involved in it. Almost all the donor partners were interested in the area of dissemination and voter education. So what we did, we asked the donors and all the organizations to use our message and to use our materials we had developed, because our concern was that if there were competing messages, then it would be very difficult to correct it in the future. 

	We had noticed in the past that if the design or development of the message is given to another sector, maybe they would design something without knowing the depth of information needed in the messages. So there was a single message, there was a single document. Also we asked the major donor partners and nongovernment sectors that if they were designing something, come, bring it to us. We'll look at it word by word, and once we finalize it, then the material will be shared by all. That was the way we tried to unify the messages so that there were not competing messages among the people.  

	I have to admit again here that during the voter education process, most of the districts in the Terai were closed under the curfew.  We deployed and involved the local community teachers who in the night were moving from one house to another house to disseminate the messages. So that was another benefit we had from the policy of deploying the local level teachers. 

MAJEED:          If we can shift our focus a little bit on the security side of elections Mr. Pokharel, you said earlier that during the elections the army was in the barracks and you had a limited number of police personnel available. Was this a concern and what did you do?

POKHAREL:	Well, from the very beginning, apart from the technical and logistic side, security was a major concern for all of us, not just the Election Commission, but for the other political actors. The international community was concerned about security, the voters were concerned about security, and the candidates were concerned about security. As I mentioned earlier, we were not able to engage the main security forces that in the past were providing the strong backbone of security services. It was such a difficult position. The police were so demoralized. The level of courage and the will to take action was virtually nil in the police and other security officials against controlling violence, because they were afraid about the future. So this was the total environment. This was the context. 

	We were puzzled by how we could conduct an election in such an environment with this lessened capacity. There were different levels of discussion at that time. I discussed a phased election several times with the prime minister, but the prime minister was not in favor of that. Mainly their thinking was that if the elections were done in a phased basis, then maybe the Maoists, the PLA (People's Liberation Army), would have enough forces that could destroy or obstruct. That force might be moving, so If we held the election all on the same day, the movement of such force would also be localized and would have less impact. 

	So that was the psychology and the calculation from the prime minister and his team. We failed to convince him to have the phased election. What other options did we have? We had very limited options. We tried to suggest to the government ways we could boost the morale of the police forces. How we can make them more mobile? So, what were the other factors? There were a few factors. Like the poll workers, a monetary incentive was given to the police force. Secondly, there was the provision of insurance. At the last moment that provision was included in order to increase the morale of the police force. Thirdly, since mobility was too limited, we increased the number of vehicles. In consultation with the government and the donor partners the mobility was increased.  

	They were lacking communication, so communication facilities were developed. They had communication facilities in more than 10,000 locations. Once their communication and mobility were increased, their strength, their courage, all that, increased. In addition to that, temporary police forces were employed. Around 70,000 temporary police were hired for a two-month period. They were trained and they were deployed and they were given certain accountability. This is the way we tried to address those security problems. 

	In addition, I was always telling the political leaders that if you political leaders  are together, there is no one to create an obstruction. You, yourselves, are the creators of the security problems. If you are united, we will be totally secure. So I asked them to create an all-party mechanism at the central level. If those mechanisms are operating, the political leaders will be talking together regularly on different levels. So we tried all that also. We tried various forms.    

MAJEED:          Was the commission responsible for security only on Election Day, or was it also responsible for security during the campaign phase?

POKHAREL:	Directly, security is mainly the government's job. But indirectly, it was the moral obligation of the Election Commission to ensure the stakeholders of the election are secure, whether it is the voters, the candidates, the poll workers or the observers. It was our moral responsibility. From that point of view, once a candidate got the nomination in the pre-election, through the campaign period, during Election Day and after the election also, in all these phases, we felt accountable and we felt responsible. The security forces worked in coordination with us to maintain the security in all phases. 

MAJEED:          You've said in the past that the entire security plan had to be approved by the Election Commission. Can you explain how this part worked? Was there a single presentation or multiple consultations and what government ministry or department was in charge of security, and how much level of detail did they go into and what was the commission's input? 

POKHAREL:	It would take a book to answer this question; let me try to be brief. I told you in an earlier question that it is the moral obligation of the Election Commission that we cannot keep silent with closed eyes. This is the role of government. We have to feel accountable more or less, but security lies primarily with the government. In this context, the Home Ministry is the security agency for internal security. There are four key agencies in the Home Ministry. One is the chief district officer, a civilian officer at the district level who has maximum authority to maintain security at the district level. Secondly, there is the civil police force, thirdly the armed police force, and the CID branch. These are the four agencies within the government who are directly involved in the security process within the home ministry. The army, within the defense ministry, however, was untouched at this time.

                           From the very beginning, we had formed different committees. One of the committees was the security committee that was headed by one of the members of the Election Commission, the election commissioner. In that security committee, there was the home secretary, all the chiefs of the four branches in the home ministry, the home secretary, the chief of the police, the chief of the armed police, the chief of the CID department. So, all those people and a few other officials comprised the security committee. That committee was involved from the very beginning to identify, to design and to give policy guidelines for security. 

	Various locations or places were identified as the most vulnerable areas, the semi-vulnerable areas, and as the normal areas. Based on that, the security plan was developed to address those vulnerabilities, concerns and problems. The security committee oversaw the details; however it was the Election Commission that approved the plan based on the macro-level policy guidelines of the Election Commission. The security agencies and the cabinet finally approved the plan, and the government then implemented that security plan and funded it. 

	The security committee met on a continuous basis. When we came near the election, once the returning officers were established in the district and the voting processes were initiated, by that time all the security agencies had their representatives in our office. We had a special office in the Election Commission's office where all the security agencies were present. All the information was discussed and disseminated from there. They shared information and discussed ways to take the right action. This is how it went from the very beginning, in a coordinated effort. I should be clear, however, that the election commission was not handling all of the security issues. 

	They met frequently. If there were serious issues, those issues were referred to the security committee, and the security committee had a meeting. This is the way we worked together to maintain peace and security and to ensure a free and fair electoral process.

MAJEED: 	 Also you mentioned just now that you had hired temporary police force for two months and they were trained and they were deployed. How did you ensure that the temporary police acted in a neutral manner?

POKHAREL:	It is always debatable. In a society where we have introduced a multi-party system, every individual has faith in this or that party. But our wish was that they did not reflect in action the way they would vote. That was in principle, but in reality it was very difficult to hire people, because all the political leaders put forward a name saying, "Oh, I need this person from my side." That was the psychology. To get a two-month job was also a big thing in a country where there are a lot of unemployed people.

	Though the recruitment, trainings and mobilizations were within the responsibility of the concerned forces, the election commission noticed there were challenges. To provide training within the limited time, one-month training for 70,000 people, without any logistical infrastructure, was difficult. Once when I visited some of the training locations, tears came to my eyes because of the way twenty people were sitting crowded into a small room. There was no infrastructure. Because of the huge number, for the first time in some locations, the temporary police started to complain about the chief of the police of their district. They tried to persuade all the political workers to go on a strike, something like that.  It was very hard to maintain discipline. However, in the training, the message repeated again and again and again, was the neutrality of their role. If they aren't neutral, they will be fired and labeled incompetent for any other job in the future. We tried a lot of negativity to control them.

	Also those temporary officers were not solely in charge, they were operating under the permanent police who were in charge. So there was a check and balance. This is the way we tried our best, and maybe we failed in many places, I don't know; you'll have to ask our political leaders how they feel about it.     

MAJEED: 	As Chief Election Commissioner, what concerned you most about the security situation and how did you address this?

POKHAREL:	The biggest concern at that time was that since the Maoists had been fighting for the last several years, they knew how to operate weapons--that they believe in violence. Up to that time, if someone asked something by mouth, they replied by gun. I can't imagine that a person who was trained to fight, who was brain washed that everyone was their enemy and how that enemy has to be treated, how the mind of this person could be changed by only having a peace pact. Disseminating that message to the grassroots level wasn't so easy. One of the major concerns for me was how the Maoists, the workers at the district level, at the community level, or the PLA who were in the cantonment, would behave. How would they react? Would they give the other political parties a chance to campaign or not? Due to the security situation, would the election be successful or would it be a blood bath?  Would this election, because of the weak security situation, be able to manage the peace process, or would it invite another conflict? Those were the major issues and concerns in my mind that were shared by almost all the political leaders, the international community, and by all. 

	Within the limitations, there weren't any other options but to have a personal dialogue and negotiate with the Maoist leaders, to try to keep their people quiet and calm. If there was any event in any part in the country, I went directly to talk to the supreme leader. "This is the problem. If the cadres continue this behavior, you will lose your agenda. Listen! Concentrate on your agenda. If there is more violence, if other political parties can't have a chance in the process, then there is the possibility that they will isolate themselves. It would be hard to have the elections. So who would be the loser?" That's the way I was trying to deal with them, and I instructed my people at the various levels, the district, the region, to have a dialogue like that. That is the one. 

	Secondly, we tried to develop the capacity of the existing forces. We saw the gaps in communication and transportation as I already indicated.  And thirdly, we tried to use the all-party mechanism so that things were maximally discussed there to politically create the right environment. At certain points, I discussed with the UN about bringing in some of the UN advisors, because the concern then was that there would be maximum pressure on the police officials either from the old political parties or the new political parties.  It was hard to deny that the police felt threatened. Tomorrow, if they win, then what would the future hold? 

	So to give them more energy, I could at least have some senior international police adviser or security adviser working with them. The sensible officers can refer to the persons who would be giving the pressure and say, "Well sir, I am ready to do it, however, there is another person sitting here who would report back and it would be dangerous. Please, can you convince him to divert the pressure from the other side?"  That was some of my thinking, but finally, due to the internal and external factors, it didn't materialize.

	Also, most of the time we were asking the United Nations Mission in Nepal, which held the key to the containers with the arms and monitored the containment camps, not to allow the People's Liberation Army fighters outside. These were some of the concerns. We tried our best.   

MAJEED: 	According to you, why wasn't there more violence on Election Day? Did some of the preparations that you talked about help?

POKHAREL:	I guess maybe it is the commitment of the Nepalese people for peace. The people were very eager for the election. Around 25% of the voters were new voters who had never voted in their life. They were very excited to use their ballot instead of using violence. They were very preoccupied about the success of this election and hence the ballot they have cast.  

	I have to give major credit to the people. The natural way they behaved in the polling centers, the way they acted or reacted to the unwanted forces. The way in the middle of the night before Election Day people came and sat in line. By five or six in the morning at almost all the polling centers, there were hundreds of people in the line, in a festive mood, with beautiful new clothes. The environment itself was so jubilant, vibrant, like a festive mood. Sometimes, if you have that type of mood, you will have less harm, less violence. 

	You know my policy was to have a maximum number of international observers. We have one weakness, that if we were fighting together with each other, we don't mind. But if there are people from outside, from another skin, in that case we will behave ourselves and never fight. We tried to give the impression that we were not fighting. I tried to capitalize on that for security purposes. My policy was to deploy maximum international observers. As a matter of fact, we were able to mobilize more than 1200 white skin and black skin observers, something like that. That also had an impact. But the message we gave in all the places was not "yes, we will have international observers," because we were not supposed to field the observers. It was their own priority where they wanted to go, but the message was there that we would have international observers. 

	About 63,000 domestic observers, were mobilized for Election Day. That had an impact. Another factor I shared with you was the strategic deployment of the teachers.  That also curbed a certain level of violence, once the potential spoilers saw the face of the headmaster or teacher in front of them.

	Of course, I have to say that the sensitivity and hard work of the political workers and what they did, and the level of understanding among the political parties not to make the election violent contributed; even if the campaign period was violent, if Election Day is violent, then other forces would take advantage. So we should not give the opportunity to other forces to take advantage. That might have psychologically impacted the political leaders, and also maybe the measures that we took to close the border. To control the infiltration from over the border , borders were sealed. During the E-day sale of alcohol and movement of vehicles other than for the election and to carry the weapons  were banned. All movement was banned, except for what was needed for the poll. There was no vehicle movement. Suspected hooligans were strictly monitored. Offices were shut down. We tried to minimize all the possible sources of violence. These could be some of the factors that might have impacted the election, but again, I would like to repeat that it was the commitment of the Nepalese people. 

	The people, even if they tended toward violence, were afraid of the sentiment of the other people, so they were calm. It is no wonder that if you compare it to past elections, these elections were conducted in a peaceful environment. This is the election where you had the least violence, compared to the past.

MAJEED: 	If we can shift our focus a little bit to post election or after the voting day, what sort of issues arose when it came to counting ballots, and how did you deal with these issues? Mr. Pokharel, would you walk me through the process of how votes were collected and counted. Once the polls closed on Election Day then what happened?

POKHAREL:	 Legally we have the provision that all the ballot papers have to be counted in the district headquarters, because all the returning officers are located in the district headquarters. The immediate priority for us, once the polls closed, was how to transport the people's will, as reflected in the ballot boxes, to the district headquarters. Once the ballots are seen by the party's representatives and the candidate's representatives, the ballot boxes were closed and sealed. They were transported to the district headquarters depending on the location. In some locations where there were roads, they were transported in trucks or vehicles. 

	Secondly, if there was no means of transportation, then the ballot boxes were hand carried by people on foot.. Some of our polling stations were seven days away from the district headquarters, so it was quite challenging to bring the ballot boxes to the district headquarters. We even had to use helicopters in the remote areas, since traveling was not possible because of security and weather and different geographical conditions. Those were the means of transportation. And, while transporting from the polling stations to the district headquarters, either the candidate or the representative traveled along with the ballot boxes for security, so no manipulations  would be done on the way. This is the way the ballot boxes were collected at the district headquarters. Once they arrived at the district headquarters, they were stored in a certain assigned area and sealed until the time for the counting.  Generally it took the whole night of the 10th and the whole day of the 11th to do all of this.  

	Generally the most difficult part of the election time for me was not managing the polling, but once the poll was over, making the ballots secure and counting them. The complexity of the problem was so high that that was much more problematic for me. Another problem was if during the process of transportation, whether by back or by mule or by truck, if those seals were broken because we don't have  good roads and while carrying one is harmed, those were the dangerous parts. But that's the way we managed to bring them to headquarters for counting. 

MAJEED: 	Did the Electoral Law provide clear guidelines on how the counting phase was conducted?

POKHAREL:	Well our law is clear enough on the counting process. Just to give you a few examples, the counting started once all the ballot boxes were collected at the collection center. Number two, in a sense we were managing two ballot papers, one for FPTP and one for the PR. Our policy was that if there was enough space in the counting hall, then both should be counted in parallel, but if there wasn't enough space, then first we'd count the FPTP, because there was a lot of pressure in the election from the FPTP, and give the results. This was likely. But most importantly, we had to include either the candidate or the representative during the counting, because he had to sign off on all the details about whether  things were done in line with the law or not. 

	Similarly before the counting, all the boxes had to be checked to be sure the original seal was intact or not, by the representatives of the candidates. They had to agree on that. If all the things were there, then for the purpose of the confidentiality of the voters, at least three different locations' ballot boxes had to be mixed so that people couldn't identify which location voted and how much to a party. So, the ballots were mixed.  

	Once those were mixed, legally they had to segregate which votes were valid and which were invalid. For all those valid or invalid votes, the person who was doing the counting had to show all the candidates whether it was right or wrong. That means every vote had to have clearance from the agent. 

	Once all that was completed, the counter had to give the results from the group he was counting to the press, so that people will be informed of the candidate's tally.  Once the counting begins, it needs to be continued. Also before declaring the final result, the representative of the candidate had to sign to show he agrees  that all the things are there. 

	One of the things is that since our system is totally decentralized, once the counting is over the results are immediately declared by the returning officers, and immediately the certificates are issued to the winning candidate. There is no need to wait for the Election Commission. The returning officers are empowered to certify the result. Also if there was a dispute, the majority of disputes have to be handled by the returning officers who were empowered to do that. But if there were difficult  disputes, something along that line, then sometimes in the interests of the returning officer, or to not make them controversial, they referred such disputes for our advice and decision. Those were  referred immediately to us. We were available 24 hours and we would give them instructions and the necessary action to be taken. 

	We had trained a pool of people to do the counting because of the complexity of the two ballots. Counting manuals were provided with clear cut guidelines to identify  valid or invalid ballots. Reasons for  all those things were clearly identified. This was the ballot counting process.  

MAJEED: 	 In terms of the counting, what sort of issues arose when it came to counting the ballots and how did you deal with these issues? 

POKHAREL:	As I indicated to you earlier, the counting was much more challenging to me than managing the elections. Where there was tight, tight competition among the candidates it was much more complicated, since they were struggling for every vote. If I have to count a few of the major challenges, then security of the ballot boxes would be one, and transporting the ballot boxes to the district headquarters another. 

	In some places, even in the counting centers, the security situation was such a problem that we had to impose extra security measures like a curfew, or we had to ban the movement of people in certain locations so that the counting was not disturbed. Security, and particularly the transportation of the ballot boxes where people had to carry them for four, five or six days on their back, was very dangerous, because generally, once the election is over in the community, people will know which candidate or party is in the better position. Once that is exposed, it is very difficult to make the boxes secure. There are times of snatching, throwing, stealing everything. So it happened in some part. 

                          I'll give you one example. In the district where they had to travel around three days from the polling station to the district headquarters, because of this possible threat, sixteen polling centers decided to move together so that they would have enough police forces. They would have a big convoy like a marriage procession. But even that failed to make the ballot boxes secure. They were looted, they were thrown out, and we had to go for the re-polling in those areas. This was another problem for us. 

	During the counting, we noted basically that the new political parties were not used to elections, like the Maoists or the Madhesi political party. They were not behaving well to the returning officers; in some places they would snatch the ballot papers, and suddenly they would try to create a problem. If one ballot paper is missing, then the whole thing would be a legal issue. 

MAJEED: 	But why were they doing that? Was it in some areas or was it problems with-? 

POKHAREL:	In certain highly disturbed districts, we had noticed that. Many, basically the Tarai Madhes-based political party, were new, and all were very excited. If they had the impression that another party was getting something that benefited that party, that was not digestable  to them. Secondly, maybe to create some problem, it was not sure sometimes who was the agent, whether the terrorists were inside or not. All those things could be possible. 

	Once we collected all the ballot boxes and stored them, some of the political parties in some places didn't allow the returning  officers to count the votes, and they locked the ballot boxes with their own lock; then they started to pressure for a re-election in such and such place, otherwise they would not allow us to count. This type of tension and pressure was there. Even in some of the most secure districts headquarters where we had enough security--even with that level of security, in some districts the returning officers felt so threatened that they would ask me to transfer those ballot boxes by helicopter to Kathmandu, count in Kathmandu, and send back the results. That was the demand.

	Psychologically they were so depressed. This was the general, overall situation and though we had a policy of non-interruption in the counting process, however, there were a lot of interruptions because in every case people were trying to create problems. Talking about major problems, well, prosecution would be the best method, but at that point of time we could not use force. That can create counter problems. We had to realize the sensitivity of the different candidates and parties, and we had to honor that. 

	 At the maximum, we tried to share the political dialogue either in the district level or in the headquarters level. In those days it took more than one week for the counting. The whole time I did not sleep; twenty-four hours I was available. Wherever there were problems I had to chat with the person, dialogue with all the political leaders, and request them to instruct their workers at the field level, so that the counting would get done. That was one of the things. 

	I shared earlier that we took some extra security measures in some places where there was an immediate threat to security, and we tried to strictly enforce the measures based on the existing legislation. If we were to favor this or that side, then the situation would have been very much worse. These are some other ways that we tried to deal with the situation.     

MAJEED: 	You mentioned earlier that in some cases people either demanded or a re-poll was necessary. What were some of the conditions that would cause a re-poll and how many re-polls were there? 

POKHAREL:	The psychology of the political parties or candidates  was that whenever they felt the other side had gathered more votes than them, then their ultimate priority would be that if possible, that poll should be canceled; if there was a chance of re-polling, then there might be a chance that they could influence the people for another vote. This was the general psychology. 

	From that angle, we got a lot of pressure from different political parties, whether they were denying it or not, and if we listened to the complaints and the applications, maybe we would have had to re-poll at more than 10 to15% of the locations. However, we had two conditions for the re-polling. One condition was that during the poll, if due to the security or a national disaster or some other problem, if the polling could not be continued, it would be postponed. Like if there was a big storm and all the polling booths there were lost, or if there is a major security condition and people cannot come because we had to impose a curfew, etcetera,  For these reasons not directly linked with the bad practices of the election, but because of other things, if the polling could not continue and was postponed by the presiding officers, in that case the returning officers were empowered to fix a new date for the election. So that was one major condition. 

	The second condition was, if there was a gross violation of electoral laws, stuffing of the ballot box, using non-electoral practices, gross violation of the code of conduct, the factors which spell out all the details in the legislation, in those cases, based on the complaint, once the election is over. However, based on the complaints, with the recommendation of the returning officers, the Election Commission can decide whether to cancel that poll, or to accept or reject. In these cases, if the proofs are there and there is sufficient evidence for the cancellations, then the Election Commission can decide to cancel and go for the re-poll. So these are the two major factors for the re-polling. 

	Repollings are also done if there are shortages of election materials in the field, or if the employees are kidnapped and there is no one to man the election booths; all these things could happen, but in this case didn't. So there are  basically two factors, one is the automatic noncontinuation--and that will be re-polled--or because of the gross violation of the electoral laws. In totality, out of 21,000 stations, 136 stations were re-polled. If you compare that to the previous figures and the context of other elections, this is nothing. 

MAJEED: 	Very good. Who oversaw the counting, and were there other neutral actors who oversaw the counting to ensure that there would be no cheating or fraud?

POKHAREL:	The collection of the ballot boxes by election officers from the district headquarters to the polling places looked like a marriage procession, with all this stuff and so many people. It was interesting. I had already indicated to you the complexity and problems about transportation, but you still have to remember that some locations were seven or eight days distance from the district headquarters. In the beginning we had planned that if the locations are that distant, then we would be using the helicopters. So in a few places we had planned to send the helicopters. Once the polls were closed, the people waited for the helicopters, but they did not come. In some cases, we had to wait seven days to send the helicopters, because of nature and the weather. There were so many limiting factors, not only the human ones. 

	 As I said, all the counting is done at the district headquarters because of the security level of all these institutions, to ensure the transparency of the counting and to avoid any illegal fraud in the counting. Legally we needed to have the candidate or their representative there and since the domestic or international observers and the media also were there, it was not very easy even if someone wished to manipulate the ballot papers.
                          The election processes and all those things could be challenged in court. We had a provision of the constitutional court to review whatever the complaints there were. If there was gross violence of code of conduct or the law was not properly followed or there were some illegal things, then the court was empowered to cancel the election results. 

	In totality, there were sixteen complaints in the court; however, all the cases were settled in favor of the Election Commission. This meant that our people in the field worked diligently. 

MAJEED: 	Did the Election Commission ensure that these people would be present in every polling location?

POKHAREL:	Yes, in all the polling locations. 

MAJEED: 	And there were a total of how many polling locations, I know that you had mentioned it.

POKHAREL:	There were around 21,000 stations in around 10,000 locations. 


MAJEED: 	On the ballot, on the point of the ballot, I also wanted to get a sense of how you managed the ballot and the national capacity and so on. Could you comment a little bit?

POKHAREL:	Well, ballot printing is most complicated and difficult in our part of the world, in my country. In the past, once the Election Commission finalized the design of the ballot papers, all the responsibility was taken by the Nepal army for printing, transporting and delivering the ballots. So for the security, transportation, logistics and supervision, the Election Commission was not worried, because the army was taking a role. But this time we were not allowed to use the army.

	The capacity was with the army. Even if we tried to bring in army people in civilian dress, it was not possible, because there were some concerns about using the army. That is just background to understand the problem. Whenever we talk about ballot printing, we need to be aware that it is time sensitive. We can print the ballot once the candidates are finalized. It means we will have a limited time, around one month, to complete the printing. The printing alone is not all. We have to deliver them to  the 21,000 stations. The transportation is a huge task. 

	This time we had to print around 240 types of ballot papers for the FPTP, because for every constituency there were separate numbers of candidates, signs, symbols, etcetera. Independently we had to print for the PR. The PR ballot was like one meter long. 

	Printing capability was very limited. We needed secure printing presses, but we don't have them in Nepal. We had to use the public presses. It was a sensitive issue if even a single ballot paper were to be lost. And again, since we didn't have the army, we had to manage everything. So these were all the difficulties.  All my international partners realized it, so they were urging me from the very beginning, not to print the ballot papers in the  country. "You have to print the ballot papers out of the country." 

	They gave examples of how the African and Central American countries without any capacity printed the ballot papers either in Canada, in the UK (United Kingdom) or other European countries. So that was the advice I was getting. At one point, I asked them to give me a cost calculation of how much the printing, the transportation, all these things would cost.  Once they gave me the cost, and when I was told that I would have to book the aircraft ahead of time--otherwise the transportation would not be available--and there were other things I won't go into. From the very beginning, I was not in favor of printing the ballot papers outside the country. 

	If I had to print outside, India would be the place, because of the transportation proximity. But there was a lot of sensitivity to printing the ballot papers in India. I had discussed it  with the Indian Election Commission.  India was ready to offer their services; however, because of the sensitive political situation, I was not able to send them there. 

	Finally I had two options, either to send it to Europe or print here locally. There was a lot of concern that it may not be possible to do it in this country. But once they gave me the different cost components, the transportation cost alone was so high if they are printed outside, it enforced my point of view to print out the ballot papers in this country. So, my decision was to develop the national capacity. There were not enough printing presses, there were not enough numbering and  perforating machines, so I decided to use the  cost for  transportation to buy those machines; so, printing the ballots locally would lift our national capacity. We worked with one of the government presses where textbooks were being printed; the same press was used in previous elections to print ballot papers. We booked that huge physical facility for a period of time. The Armed Police Force did a fantastic job giving full security during the printing and transport. 

	We bought six or seven new printing machines with the understanding with that institution that after the ballot papers were printed, those machines would remain there, and they will print textbooks for our children in the remote areas, and whenever, in the future, the Election Commission needs to do the job again, that entity will give a 33% cost reduction for the work. So that's the way we tried to develop our national capacity. We printed it here. There was a serious chance of failure, but I opted to take the risk rather than sending the ballot paper out. It was one of the major, major headaches that I had faced during the preparation of the ballots.     

MAJEED: 	You had also mentioned earlier that in terms of observers media was also there. Can you talk a little bit about media monitoring of the elections as a whole, and what was their role?

POKHAREL:	From the very beginning, maybe this is a global problem, but actually we had to face the fact that the media was favoring either this side or that side. They are biased sometimes.  The political parties disguise the fact that largely they run the media.  Even government media are not neutral, but sometimes have a government bias.  We cannot control them totally so we had to think how we could make them side less  with this or that group. 

	So in consultation with the media people, we designed a code of conduct for the media, but first we asked the media representatives to develop their own code of conduct and to monitor themselves. We would take action based on their recommendations.  That is the way we started. In the beginning there was a lot of hesitation from the media. "We have our own code of conduct. Why does the media need a separate code of conduct?," were the questions. There was a lot of discussion and finally they agreed.  

	The second issue for me was whether my Election Commission had the capacity to monitor the media, number one. Number two, will they listen to the Election Commission? What incentives can the Election Commission give the media? So those were the questions.  In that context, I made a decision to involve the press council. The press council is a representative body that has the legal authority to take action against the media if they cross their code of conduct. It's a representative, totally neutral, independent body out of the government. So we negotiated, we dialogued with them, and then we contracted out the whole job to them, to the press council. 

	We supported development of the capacity of Press Council in the different parts of the country. We had more than 1000 daily/weekly papers printed throughout the country and 250 24 - hour FM stations, plus one dozen television channels that carried the news and so on. In different parts of the country we supported the creation of a sub center. They developed certain criteria, totally scientific ones, and people were trained and they were assigned to monitor. All the TV and radio stations were monitored at the central level.

	Our understanding was that every day the press council would report to us on whether some of the media had been biased or not. If they were biased then they would immediately inform us. The Election Commission would take action based on the code of conduct that same day or the following day. 

	Firstly they, the media, had to correct the problem. There were some other penalties also. This is the way we developed the mechanism. This was the first time that this systematic approach was introduced in the country. In the beginning there was resistance, but they all realized that this was a good process, because at least it tried to curb the inclination of a single party to try to influence things. The views of the political parties, of the candidates, were much more balanced, even the government-run radio. I have one very interesting story.  Every government in power used these political programs for their own party purpose. Other political parties did not agree with the outcome and complained to us about why the government media had an influence over the Information Minister. So we monitored it, and realized that there were some problems. The program was much more focused on the party of the Information Minister, who belonged to the Maoists. All the persons who were operating or managing that program were their cadres. Virtually because of that, they were pro-Maoist programs. 

	So we invited  the government owned radio and TV directors and authorities in, and warned them several times to stop such political programs. But they were a little hesitant because the people  operating the program were directly instructed by the Information Minister. So finally I had to write to them. "By tomorrow you have to stop this program. If you continue then I will close the whole radio station down." That was the instruction given and written to the Nepal National Radio. 

	Once that decision was delivered to the authority, immediately it was reported to  the Minister who was campaigning in the field. The Minister immediately called me, and we had a very strong conversation. He asked me why I was interfering in his area. Then I asked him, "Why is your institution being biased? It is in my authority to say it will be closed." Then he said, "No, no, no, I'll not close. What can you do?" "You will see what I will do, in the next step," I said. Those were the hard dialogues we had.  Finally they closed that program. 

	This is the way we were trying to create a baseline and bring to the people listening, a code of conduct. These are some of the stories.      

MAJEED: 	 One question I had on that point was the press council obviously agreed to work with the Election Commission, but was that a difficult process to convince them or were they onboard?

POKHAREL:	I offered them some positive incentives. One of the main jobs of the press council is the regular monitoring of all the newspapers of the country and other media. But they lacked any  capacity, they still didn't have a scientific operation mechanism. They were acting only based on complaints.  They didn't have the infrastructure. So for this program, what I offered them was, "Well, we will develop the institutional capacity." It means we physically developed a hall. Around 26 or 27 computer  stations were there, all the major radio TV stations were connected. We provided the resources to hire human resources and those people were given training. The listening and reporting mechanism was scientifically developed. People who were in the sub-centers out of the city were connected through the WAN system.

	That was the way the positive incentive we offered them, attracted them. So they easily agreed. Another factor was the CA election was a national issue. Everybody owned that issue. Also one of the direct benefits to me was that the person who was chairing that institution was one of my close friends and I said to him, "This is the time you can make history."  

MAJEED: 	Can you comment a little bit on the cost of the elections?

POKHAREL:	Though we would have only one result of this election, however, we had to prepare for three elections: the June election, the November election and the April election. Three preparations. Compared to our previous elections, even a single election was like two elections, because we needed to manage one for the FPTP and one for the PR side. In parallel, we had to develop the ballot paper, the number of poll workers and all the needed requirements. So this was the context. 

	Even if all the situations were extremely difficult ones, finally we were able to manage the whole election process. The whole election cost covering three years, three preparations, all these things, came to around less than $5 (five dollars) per voter. To me, I understood that around $25 is the minimum cost for a post-conflict country election. There are some elections that cost around $250 plus per voter. But in that context, we were able to manage the elections, except the security cost. That is different.  They had their own problems and their own purpose. So three and a half dollars was the cost and to me, compared to others, it was not a big cost.  

MAJEED: 	And the total cost if we're counting all the voters?

POKHAREL:	The total cost might have come to around, let me calculate, I think it would be in between 60 to 70 million dollars. 

MAJEED: 	I would like to shift our focus a little bit and talk about some general reflections and observations. I would imagine that as head of the election commission in the context of attempting to hold elections in a post-conflict environment, your priority is keeping all the political actors at the table. I imagine you were often confronted with the question of how far do I go to enforce a policy, be it with security or code of conduct or a host of other issues that came up. So what considerations did you take into account when answering the question of how far should I go?

POKHAREL:	 That's a very interesting question and difficult to answer also. Anyway, from the very beginning, it was very clear that this was not only an election that I was conducting. More than the election, this is the part of the peace process. The whole future of the peace process was directly linked with the election. One of the key concerns to me from the very beginning was how to strike a balance between the key electoral norms of free, fair, impartial, and the peace process. 

	It was a difficult task for me. Often those days, depending on popular public opinion or a different piece of news in the newspaper, in the beginning the messages were not positive to the Maoists. There were indications from people and indications from the press that Maoists would badly lose this election. Even their key leaders would not be elected. So because of that, there might be two threats. One threat, because of the context of the Maoists, is that they would be looking for certain opportunities to boycott the election and not participate in the election, or even if they participated in the election, they would not agree on the result. That could create conflict in this country. 

	So that was the general feeling at that time. Sadly, before my election (election in Nepal), there were two incidents of major electoral violence globally.  For example, in Kenya, just a few months before our election, people had witnessed post-election violence. I was sensitive  that the same situation could happen to us also, because we had a much more complicated conflict situation in this country. 

	Keeping the Maoists in the election process was the ongoing challenge, and once the election results came in, the challenge was how to make them agree to accept them. The whole policy, the whole national mood and not only the national, but also the international, psychology, was focused on that. I'm giving you the context. 

	Nobody, not the government nor the political parties, nor even the Election Commission, was trying to give an excuse to the Maoists to be put off by the electoral process. That was the whole mood of the country. The ultimate goal of the election was to address the conflict by bringing the Maoists into the democratic electoral process. If we failed to bring them into the electoral process, there wouldn't be any sense in conducting this election. 

	Even a few months before the election there were serious discussions among the  political leaders about dividing the seats  among the political parties. Go into the election with the understanding that out of 240, this much is to the NC, this much is to Maoists, this to UML and so on this was to give a honorable position to the Maoists and go to the elections to fight the regressive forces. They were even discussing that level of process. 

	Secondly, in the later stage, there was so much reported in the press that the Maoists would do badly, that even the senior level leaders would lose the election. Some sectors of people suggested that since they would do badly in the election then, that in order to continue them in the election process and make the election acceptable, why not withdraw the candidates of other political parties and give the consensus to key leaders of the Maoists, so that at least the central level leaders would be in the parliament, and they could create pressure to accept the results. 

	So these were the different political things that were going on underground, but they surfaced above ground also. Fundamentally, how to make a compelling environment for the Maoists so that they would not be a stumbling block for the election process, was the macro level context. Within that context, even if at some point there were serious violations from the Maoists in terms of security, the government would not take serious action. 

	 I'm not sure, but I guess at that time the government leadership was trying to give a message to the Maoists that they would tolerate up to a certain level, but they didn't want to give any excuses to the Maoists because of it. Even in some of the dialogue, whenever we were trying to be tough, I was getting the feeling that maybe the Election Commission did not like our participation in the election process. This is the reason why they were being a little bit hard on us. Those are just the contextual matters. 

                          I'll give you a few examples where I failed, I wish I hadn't, but I failed. I have to admit it. I have to be honest. The campaign period was covered with more than expected violence, but the government's security sector was to take the action. We had to ask the security sector  for action, but they were so depressed, there was no energy to take any action against the Maoists. Some districts like Dhading, Pyuthan, Ramechhap, or Gorkha, there were around six or seven districts where the level of intensity of the violence was very high. One evening just I was watching television there was a visual on the television that in Ramechhap, the candidate of the UML was so badly beaten by Maoist activists that he was on his deathbed. He and his followers were not allowed to campaign in Maoist constituencies, their strong areas, and the Maoists were using violence. 

	Once I saw that visual and that guy who had to be transported by helicopter for emergency medical services in Kathmandu, once I saw that, I thought, "Well, whether it's legal or illegal, I don't mind. I'm going to make an example of them to demonstrate certain things tomorrow, and I'll invite the commission to meet and I will suspend this candidate. I will try to give a message to the Maoists that if you do something wrong, you will not have immunity." 

                         That was my determination. I went to the office. I asked my commissioners to be at the meeting. I was trembling. I told them, " Today we will suspend this candidate at this meeting, and he will be out." I was shouting like that. It was so hard. But the Election Commission can only decide anything if all five agree in consensus. If one member disagrees, we cannot have a result. 

	So one of my colleagues wisely said, "Why are you only talking about the Maoists? Other parties are also doing violence. You aren't talking about the other parties. Maybe you are trying to isolate the Maoists. If you take that action, that could be a good excuse for the Maoists to boycott the election. Are you in favor of that?" He claimed that he was sure that if this action were taken, the Maoists would not participate in this election. "I am sure." But once he made that statement, I had to re-think it, because I was not supposed to lose the whole agenda.  I had to withdraw my proposal. These days, whenever I reflect on that I think maybe, because of not taking that action, I was able to conduct the election in the whole country. The Maoists came to the peace process. They are in the parliament and that is the positive side. 

	Whenever I think of the negative side, why did I fail to demonstrate that we could do something? We were highly criticized at that time because we were like a tiger without any teeth, without any nails, etcetera, etcetera. So why did I fail to take  action and make the Election Commission fierce like a dog? Because of that decision, the Election Commission was highly criticized. I failed to establish a concrete example of how best the Election Commission could be powerful, what level of action the Election Commission could take. I missed that opportunity. So those two sides always come to my mind whenever I reflect. 

	Let me cite another reflection, not directly linked to the Maoists, where I had to make a compromise with the political parties during the development of the electoral legislation.  Once when we were discussing about inclusive representation, the general thinking of the political actors and political parties was to make the  proportional  only for  the candidate list; they were not thinking about the inclusivity in the representation. We had very strong dialogue and negotiation with the political leaders of the political parties. At that time, we had the support of the different caucuses like the indigenous people, women and others. They were a strong force behind us, since we were promoting their agenda.

	In the final discussions about how to prepare the list, since there were open and closed lists, different lists, on the proportional representatives side, in sentiment, they agreed with the closed list. A closed list means people cannot change the list once it was finalized, but they did not agree to select the candidate based on  rank. Generally in the closed list whoever ranks at the top, and the number of  seats, that would be the cut off. Above them people would be elected. But the political parties said, "No, no, no. If you do that our political party will not mature. We can't deny that we are very weak, and the political workers or candidates will calculate how many seats they can attain for their party, and once they realize that they are below that list, either they will keep silent or they will not go to campaign, number one. Or they might defect and join another political party and because of that, it will be much more dangerous for us. So, Mister Election Commissioner, you have to listen to us. Give us the liberty to select the people within the list, either the candidate from the bottom or from the top or anywhere." 

	So they were demanding that and I was demanding that they had to be more inclusive. Finally, I made a deal with them. "Okay, you agree to have inclusivity in the result and even if that is against my principles, I agree to give you the liberty to chose the candidate from anywhere on the list." That was the compromise; that was the understanding I had made. Just to give you another example.

MAJEED: 	On the converse side, was there ever a moment when you realized that you had been too strict in terms of enforcing a policy? 

POKHAREL:	Well, even before the enforcement of the policy, I was too forceful introducing the policy. I was hard on my political leaders. These days, during my reflections, I think that I was asked to conduct the elections and elections are conducted once the legislation is passed by the parliament.  I was not responsible for the legislation. The declaration of the election date  was not in my hands, it  was in the government's hands. The political environment was not my responsibility; it was the political parties' responsibility. So, why did I pressure the country--the leaders, the political parties, the government--so much to pass the constitution by a certain date, otherwise I would not conduct the election? "You must pass the legislation by this date, otherwise I will not go for the election. You must announce the time by this date, otherwise I will not go for the election." So why? Why was I insisting so much? Was that my duty? 

	This is the point where, to manage post-conflict elections, sometimes election commissioners have to cross the traditional boundaries, legal barriers and technical barriers. Under normal conditions, if we kept to ourselves in  insisting and continuing pressure, in that case, then I am sure that elections would not have been possible. Someone needed to be proactive. So I took that role. I was proactive. There are a number of other areas, but you know that was one of the areas where I felt that I had crossed over the line and was more proactive, I was more proactive. 

MAJEED:          In terms of just reflecting back on your experience, if tomorrow you were again asked to be the Chief Election Commissioner for the next round of elections in Nepal, what are the top two lessons you learned from the 2008 experience that you would apply to the job?

POKHAREL:	[Chuckling]. First thing, it is only in my imagination that I would go back to that job again. So I completely rule out that question. However, I can strongly recommend that the people who would be taking charge, listen to me. The key thing for any election is ensuring the credibility of the election commission and the people behind it. You have the set of rules, you have all the technical details, you have the money, but if you don't have the credibility you cannot perform this job. People will not listen to you. Why do people listen to you? If you can demonstrate your leadership by action then people will believe in you. People want to see actions, not words. So that is one of the key lessons I have learned from this process. 

	Credibility is not so easy. You have to live with your past history also. You cannot establish your credibility only by your present action. You need to carry out a certain level of credibility in the past.  Even if you try to clean yourself up in the present position, people will know and analyze your past. They could challenge     it. So my suggestion to the authorities is that whenever they are trying to select  people in certain very sensitive areas, the authorities have to keep in mind to bring people who carry credibility.

	Secondly, there are a number of factors involved in earning credibility. The commission must be consultative in the process, it must listen to the people, it must be totally transparent, and it should be maximally inclusive. Try to accommodate the feelings of a maximum number of people. Listen to them. Ask them to tell you what their problems are. Share with them and the people will listen to you, they will favor you, they will speak on behalf of you. We need to be totally transparent. Transparency will empower you. It will make you stronger and will give moral authority to you. 

	Thirdly, participation.  Involve everyone at every level. Never try to impose your agenda on others. Try to implement other's agendas so that other people will take the ownership and it will become easier. In many cases, I have seen a person decide something, ask people to follow it, and never in the process listen to them or ask what is their sentiment. These are some of the fundamental things for any managers or leaders to get things done. 

	Also if you are dealing in a very complex political situation, sometimes what I have seen is that there was no dialogue among the political leaders. The seven or eight key political parties on different sides were having no dialogue. Nobody was taking the initiative, so I decided that I would try to bring the political leaders together.  Someone needs to take that role, so I took that role. I tried to bring those people who were on different sides together. I was trying to convince them that this is no time to fight. You have to be united. 

	It means, if you are handling a delicate, post conflict situation where there is inconsistency and very fragile transitions are there, authorities sometimes need to be proactive. If I had waited silently, and let the political actors, the government, finish their agenda, maybe during my tenure I could not have seen the elections. 

	My sincere advice to anyone conducting an election, depending on the situation, is that we need to understand how to be flexible. We have to create various circles within ourselves about what are the most allowable boundaries under which conditions; where can we close our eyes, or where we do we need to keep our eyes open to see if someone is crossing the circle.  

                          I'll give one example. I have so many examples, I'll just give one example.
	For the April election, even if we started the nomination process, the Madhesi party didn't come for the nomination process. The government  continued  the dialogue  with the political leaders, but all the issues were not resolved, so they didn't come for the nomination. Now the challenge for me was that there were two options. I could either extend the fixed nomination date and bring those people into the election, or I would have the authority to say, "No, the nomination date is over."  Between the two options, I chose the first. 

	My priority was to address the conflict, not only the Maoists conflict, but then at that time the ongoing conflict in the Terai, with the Madhesi party. If the Madhesi party or candidate had not participated in the election process-that's 50% of the population, so I would not be able to conduct the election. My priority was to be flexible, to compromise. I broke the law because I gave more nomination time.  I gave a three-time extension. 

	The first time,  people did not come, and again, the next time also they did not come. Then in the third time, all the people, the Madhesh based parties and their candidates, did come, and they submitted the nomination. I was able to bring all the dissatisfied people to the election process. That created an environment so that we were able to conduct the election peacefully.  Because of that flexibility, I was not responsible for creating another  conflict in the country. So, flexibility. We need to be flexible also. These are some of the examples.     

MAJEED: 	 One final question. In terms of your experience as former Chief Election Commissioner of Nepal and knowing what you know now, several years later, if you were able to go back in time, what was the one thing you would have done differently or what would you have kept the same?  

POKHAREL:	Well, all the things I just explained, I would follow. After completing the election,   prematurely, I resigned from my position. I was appointed for six years and there were only three conditions for my exit from that position. First, I could die, or second, I could resign, or third, because of gross misconduct, a two-thirds majority (in parliament) could impeach me.  Without my will, or without God's will, there was no other way. You can imagine that a two-thirds majority would never be possible, since everybody was fighting for power, for position. I resigned voluntarily. 

	This was such a position; it gave me fame, it gave me a name. You have such a high position, you are always at the top. Once the elections are over, you will have a bonus of more leisure, more time. You will be invited globally to give speeches, to give seminars, etcetera, etcetera. You know, it is such a lucrative time after the election, all those big things were possible. But once I completed the election, my commitment was that based on my own experiences, I would design a policy, a reform policy. I designed the policy, started a long-term policy and strategy to reform the future elections, and I negotiated with the different national and international level of partners to fund that strategy and activities.

	Once there was the commitment and I was ensured that even if I resigned the seat, this reform process would continue, then I thought, since I had already conducted the election, for weeks I was there, and I had already insured a commitment for the future reform processes that anyone could implement these things, this isn't the time to continue three and a half years more in that position. So I prematurely resigned. I joined an academic institution for one year; I went to the Kennedy School as a student. 

	 I am sure that you know the way the Kennedy School teaches, mostly they teach on the basis of case studies. They have three thousand plus cases that they have been able to do. In every class, whenever there were cases, I felt so sad. I had missed my opportunity. I would have had numerous cases, not a single case. I would have 300 or 400 cases I could have developed during my two and a half year period. I could have used the material. All the different universities, the academic institutions, could have used those valuable materials, but I missed the opportunity. In the beginning I did not realize that I needed to continue the documentation of all the things. Today, if I need a certain statement about what I had issued, I don't have those documents. Nor does the Election Commission have the documentation; we lost that national history. We are not able to guide the future generation about what the lessons are, how the process was conducted, who made the most effort, what were the successes, what were the failures. We missed documenting that. So this is the thing. 

	My mistake in the past, I'll try to record to preserve  in the future. Thank you very much.    

MAJEED: 	Thank you so much Mr. Pokharel. Is there anything that I've missed or that you would like to add?

POKHAREL:	I have to thank you and your team. This is the third time that we have discussed this issue and as indicated in the very beginning, I don't like to see the failure and the success of this process repeated again and again.  I am thankful to Princeton University and Innovations for Successful Societies, that they have the strength and energy to follow these things. I have unlimited stories for those two and a half years which are not possible to share within a few hours conversation. So whatever I try to disseminate is some of the major points that I remember, I have already forgotten the majority of things. But however, I am hopeful that whatever the things I have shared can be a little helpful to other parts of the world who are in the same kinds of situations. So thank you very much. Please convey my regards to your program director and to all your colleagues who are involved in this process.

MAJEED: 	Thank you so much Mr. Pokharel.

Innovations for Successful Societies				Series: Elections
Oral History Program						Interview number: ZH-3
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