Former Deputy Prime Minister Ishwor Pokhrel’s claim on popular vote is false

A screengrab of the Facebook post of Radio Annapurna Nepal’s show Radio Power.

Ishwor Pokhrel, the senior vice chair of the CPN UML, recently claimed the Election Commission stated in a bulletin that his party had received the majority of votes cast in the local election in May 2022. He made this claim in an interview aired on the Facebook page of Radio Annapurna Nepal on October 17, 2022.

Pokhrel is the UML’s contender for a seat in parliament from Kathmandu’s Constituency-5.

In an interview with Radio Annapurna Nepal’s show called Radio Power on October 17, 2022, Pokhrel said:

It is impossible to account for the psychological fear created by the [five-party] coalition during the local election. At the time, they promised to eliminate the UML. They claimed that a torchlight must be used to hunt for the UML. But as we are all aware, the Election Commission stated in its bulletin that the UML obtained the majority of the popular vote. We didn’t vanish. The psychological dread that [the opponents] instilled has been disproven.

Ishwor pokhrel

Did the Election Commission state the UML received the most popular votes in the local elections, as claimed by Pokhrel? Nepal Check fact-checked Pokhrel’s claim. 

Fact-check

Nepal held local elections on May 13, 2022. Nepali Congress won 329 of the 753 local units, while CPN-UML won 206. 

To communicate election information, the Election Commission produced an election e-bulletin from April 14, 2022, until May 26, 2022. Before the final results of the municipal elections, the EC stopped issuing the bulletins. Based on the information gathered up until 34,953 people were chosen to serve as local officials, the EC released its final e-bulletin. 

According to Surya Prasad Aryal, a spokesman, the EC has not released any additional bulletins about local elections. Information on the political parties’ popular votes is not included in any of the 43 issues.

According to the election results published by the EC, 35,097 people were elected, while 124 posts remained vacant in the local elections for 35221 posts.

On July 26, 2022, the EC released the results of the collective votes garnered by political parties for each seat, including the mayor, deputy mayor, chair and deputy chair of a rural municipality, and ward chair.

Based on the EC’s information, Ujyaalo published news that claimed the CPN-UML candidates for the posts of mayor, deputy mayor and municipal head and deputy head won the popular vote. According to the news in Pahilo Post, Nepali Congress received the popular vote based on the votes received by the candidates for ward chairpersons.

To learn more about this issue, Nepal Check spoke with Shaligram Sharma Poudel, a spokesman for the Election Commission. According to Poudel, the EC has not released any data on popular vote totals for political parties. “One political party obtained more votes than another in some positions, while the reverse was true in others. On what basis could we define the popular vote?” Poudel told Nepal Check, “Political parties have claimed the popular vote based on which position they have received the most votes from. But we have not said anything about this [popular votes].”

ClaimClaimed byNepal Check Verdict
The Election Commission, in its bulletin, said the CPN-UML gained the majority of popular votes in the 2022 local elections.Former deputy prime minister and UML’s senior vice chair Ishwor PokhrelFalse
Nepal Check verdict after verifying Ishwor Pokhrel’s claim that the Election Commission said the UML got the most votes in the 2022 local poll.

This article is written by

Himal Poudel

Poudel is a fact-checker at Nepal Check. For the last two years, he has worked as a reporter and a translator. He was a political reporter at Naya Patrika, one of Nepal’s leading dailies, from August 2021 to August 2022. Prior to joining Naya Patrika, he worked as a desk editor at Sunaulo Nepal, a digital platform.