An election for a Constituent Assembly was held in Nepal on 10 April 2008after having been postponed from earlier dates of 20 June 2007 and 22 November 2007. This assembly will draft a new constitution. Hence, this will decide amongst others, on the fate of the Nepalese monarchy and federalism. There will be around 17.5 million eligible voters.
The Election Constituency Delimitation Commission recommended the following number and distribution of seats: 240 members would be elected through a proportionate electoral system, 240 members through election in constituencies and 17 on recommendation by the Council of Ministers.
All of the parties have been designated election symbols; for instance, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) have hammer and sickle, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) a sun and the Nepali Congress a tree. The Carter Center was to send 50 short-term election monitors, and the European Union was to send 60 short- and long-term election monitors The second delay, on 5 October 2007, occurred because the Maoists demanded that a republic be declared before the election and that a fully proportional system be used in the election instead of a mixed system.[10] A compromise was agreed to on 4 November: the election would use a fully proportional system, but the republic would only be declared immediately after the Constituent Assembly election.[11]
On November 4, the majority in the interim parliament voted in favour of a Maoist proposal calling for a fully proportional election systemOn 15 December, the government tabled an amendment to the constitution. This amendment moved the deadline for Constituent Assembly elections from 15 December 2007 to 12 April 2008, and changed the membership of the Constituent Assembly: the seats for proportional representation system were increased to 335 and the members nominated by the prime minister were increased to 26 from 17. As specified in the Election to Members of the Constituent Assembly Act (2007)14], party list representation will be calculated using a result divisor method, the Sainte-Laguë method The seats for first-past-the-post elections remained at 240, making the total number 601 seats instead of the earlier 497 The word "republic" was also included, but will have to be confirmed by the Constituent Assembly.The agreement was officially adopted on December 23, 2007 by the government and the Maoists stated they would rejoin the government shortly. The interim parliament approved the deal on December 28, with 270 in favor and three opposed.
The Election Commission gave parties which wished to register for the polls a new deadline of 14 January 2008; parties which had previously registered did not have to re-register On 11 January, the Cabinet decided to hold the election on 10 April.
A group of pro-monarch parties, led by Rastriya Prajatantra Party Nepal, plan to form a monarchist alliance before the election.Another monarchist alliance, Samyukta Samabeshi Morcha, was also formed before the election.
An estimated 60 percent of the 17.6 million voters casted ballots, many of them lining up before dawn outside the 20,000 polling stations. The election of the 601-seat Constituent Assembly to write a new constitution was touted as the cornerstone of a 2006 peace deal struck with the Maoists-rebels, ending the Nepalese Civil War in 2006 that forced Nepal's king Gyanendra to cede power, which he had seized in the year 2005. The election hold great symbolic value for many in the impoverished Himalayan nation, where 60 percent of the 27 million people are under age 35 and many voted for the first time.