Voting for the election of members of the House of Representatives has begun across the country Thursday morning.
The Election Commission has designated the voting period from 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Voters arrived at the polling stations and queued up for voting even before 7:00 AM.
Key leaders of political parties and candidates also cast their votes early in the morning. Voting is being done for 165 constituencies under the First-Past-the-Post (direct) election system and for 110 seats under the proportional representation (PR) system.
Sixty-five political parties are competing with 61 election symbols for the direct category. In the direct category, 3,406 candidates—comprising 3,017 men, 388 women, and one other—are in the electoral race.
Similarly, under the PR election system, 3,135 candidates, including 1,363 men and 1,772 women, are competing. In this election, there are a total of 18,903,689 voters, including 9,663,358 men, 9,240,131 women, and 200 others.
Additionally, the Election Commission stated that 186,142 temporary voters have been established. For the election, 23,112 polling centers have been determined across 10,967 polling stations nationwide. Along with the voter ID card, voting is also permitted if one possesses any one of the following documents: a citizenship certificate, national identity card, passport, driver's license, or land ownership certificate.
