Chief Election Commissioner Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya says that votes in Nepal's federal and provincial elections on Sunday 20 November will begin to be counted from 9pm local time.

He cast his own votes for the House of Representatives and for the provincial assembly elections, at Unique Nepal Academy in Bhaktapur, a city in the east corner of the Kathmandu Valley.

After that, Thapaliya said the voting would close at 5pm and all the ballot boxes would be collected at the vote count centres by 7pm. “Then, we will need to hold a meeting among all the parties for around an hour, and we expect to begin the count by 9pm.”

However, collecting ballot boxes in the mountainous districts would take time, hence the count there would begin tomorrow morning, he added.

Thapaliya reiterated that the Commission expected around 70 percent turnout.

He also said the Commission would announce all the first-past-the-post results in the next eight days whereas the results of proportional representation elections would be announced by December 8.

Voters will elect a 275-member federal House of Representatives, consisting of 165 lawmakers elected under the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, one from each constituency, and 110 elected under a proportional representation (PR) system.

They will also vote in members of seven provincial assemblies -- 550 people in total. Each assembly will get 60 percent of its lawmakers through the FPTP system and the remaining 40 percent by PR.

The multiple parliaments and multiple voting systems mean each voter has to cast four votes: a FPTP vote and a PR vote for the federal parliament, and a FPTP and a PR vote for a federal assembly.

This footage was filmed and produced 20 November 2022.

Chief Election Commissioner Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya says the vote count of the elections being today will start at 9 pm today.

After casting his vote for the House of Representatives and provincial assembly elections at Unique Nepal Academy in Bhaktapur, a city in the east corner of the Kathmandu Valley, today, Thapaliya said the voting would close at 5 and all the ballot boxes would be collected at the vote count centres by 7 in the evening. “Then, we will need to hold a meeting among all the parties for around an hour, and we expect to begin the count by 9.”

However, collecting ballot boxes in the mountainous districts would take time, hence the count there would begin tomorrow morning only, according to him.

Meanwhile, Thapaliya reiterated that the commission would expect around 70 per cent turnout in the elections this time.

Thapaliya said the commission would announce all the first-past-the-post results in the next eight days whereas the results of proportional representation elections would be announced by December 8.