Election Commission warns against No-not-again campaign

As “No-not- again” campaign against former Prime Ministers, who have won elections time and again, is gaining momentum in social media ahead of the November 20 elections, the Election Commission in Nepal has warned people against such campaign. “Do not indulge in negative publicity targeting certain candidates as it cannot be considered ‘freedom of expression’ the election commission asked the people issuing a notice on Friday and also warned that people involved in such type of misleading negative publicity can get penalized under cyber crime and other related acts.” This is for the second time the EC issued such warning within a week.

“No- not- again” campaign has been launched by a group of youths , who have asked people not to vote incumbent and former Prime Ministers including Prime Minister and Nepali Congress president Sher Bahadur Deuba, CPN-UML chairman K.P. Sharma Oli, CPN-Unified Socialist chairman Madhav Kumar Nepal, CPN-Maoist Centre chairman Pushpakamal Dahal “Prachanda,”  senior leader of CPN-Unified Socialist Jhalanath Khanal and senior leftist  leader Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai during the Parliamentary elections scheduled for November 20. Nepal is going for Parliamentary and provincial level elections in a single day on November 20, 2022. However, Bhattarai has decided not to contest the Parliamentary election this time, though his daughter Manusi is one of the candidates from Kathmandu on behalf of the ruling alliance.

“Repeating the same old person, who have failed to deliver to the people, in the Parliamentary election will deprive other qualified people from gaining power,” one of the campaigners argued. However, the “No-not-again” campaign has become number one trending in social media including twitter and facebook despite the warning issued by the Election Commission.

“The EC is seriously monitoring such type of unwanted, false and misleading publicity directed against certain political party or candidate,” said the notice issued by the EC. “The EC observes zero tolerance against such types of false and misleading publicity,” it added.