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Why the Proportional Representation (PR) system must go?




The Proportional Representation (PR) system sounds good on paper, just like our world's greatest constitution. But our lawmakers have never followed the constitution, but have only violated and exploited it, and have done the same with the PR thing since the first Constituent Assembly (CA) in 2008.



The PR system was meant for the MARGlNalized, the vulnerable, the disabled, the ones left completely ignored by our system. But it became a cash cow for our major political parties. A wife of a Golcha even went on TV claiming that she had paid Rs 5 Karod for PR seat in the CA.



Arzoo Deuba became a foreign minister not by winning elections but by getting a PR seat thanks to her husband and using the back door to flaunt her handbags and colorful saris during foreign visits, when she had the chance to actually use her years of experience in something to build meaningful relationships with other nations.


And even the new party of ours, the RSP has also failed in the PR seats thing by offering them to a former Miss Nepal, a former CNN News Anchor, and the wife of a shoe company. All of them are capable, smart, and independent women, but do we need to know how to make good pustakaaris or read the news or get ideas on affordable shoes for all Nepalis when there are far more pressing issues that needs to be addressed?



What kind of women or men do we need in the PR seats? We need the silent ones who have been working to uplift their communities for years, without any personal or political gain. Mahabir Pun kind of people, Harka kind of people but both of them are standing up for elections this time but we can find many Mahabirs across the country if we look around.



When it comes to women, we have so many social leaders who have worked against women's exploitation and trafficking and who themselves have been victims of such abuses. Allow these kinds of women to be in the forefront when formulating policies and laws that will prevent the exploitation of women here and abroad.



Yes, every political party needs funds for their election campaigns, and thanks to the PR system, it has become much easier and more lucrative to sell the PR thing to people who can afford to buy it rather than earn it.



Give a PR seat to a guy who has lost both his hands working in a factory in Malaysia. He could give us all better advice on making it better for our migrant workers. Give a PR seat to a rocket scientist who could one day build us a rocket to Mars. He or she or they could give us advice on how to start early to make our kids compete technologically at the global stage.



Give a PR seat to an athlete who has gone through the pain and struggle of barely surviving while being exploited by sports organizations. He or she could help us formulate laws that ban politically affiliated clowns from heading such organizations and make it mandatory to have either a coaching experience or a sporting one to head such bodies!



In a few days, we will have 165 winners who will get the opportunity to represent their constituencies for the next five years or until something crazy happens halfway through the journey. Hope they will do their best to make the lives of their constituents better.



But what about the 110 PR seat winners? Whom do they represent? Yes, they are supposed to represent the voiceless, but some of them are in it just to find the back door to become a Minister or some to be relevant for their own ego, and some to make sure their shady business dealings do not get much scrutiny while they are in power.



So, if we are not getting the 'real' people in the PR category, then why not scrap it and save us some money instead of spending more to accommodate 110 folks and wasting our taxpayers' money on their salaries and perks?



Let us hope the new House after the elections will make it their first task to scrap the PR system once and for all, not because it was ever a bad thing, but because it has been a tool to raise funds for political parties, and it has been abused and misused in the name of inclusiveness.



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