Balen's Got Challenges

Ward Map of Kathmandu Metropolis

Now that the vote difference is growing wider and wider as the counting progresses, it is almost certain that Balen will win the election. Yes, Balen is going to be the mayor of Kathmandu for the next five years.

Among the counted wards, Balen has got as high as 39% of total casted votes (Maharajgunj area i.e. ward no.3) and as low as 33% (Baluwatar area i.e. ward no.4).

There has been an estimation that Balen will grab enormous votes from the outer settlements occupied by later-on migrated people, and that he will acquire less votes from the Kathmandu core area.

The widely told Kathmandu core is composed of the following wards:

Ward No	Area Name	Total voters
15	Dallu	8720
16	Sohrakhutte	12336
17	Chhetrapati	5627
18	Nardevi	2740
19	Dhokatole	3483
20	Bhimsensthan	3010
29	Dillibajar-Pipalbot	8261
Grand Total		44177

 

Many has assumed that Balen will significantly lag on the core Kathmandu area owing to the fact as follows:

   ·       These area are occupied by original ethnic Newar community, which − I don't know but it is said here and there on the grapevine − tend to vote leader from their own community, that I beg to differ.

   ·       These area are also the area of other chief opponents of Balen. Chhetrapati (ward no 17) is the residence of Srijana Singh and Dillibazar - Pipalbot (ward no 29) is the area of Keshav Sthapit. If they have influence on the local voters of their area, it might reflect bad on Balen's vote outcome. But the good prospect is that Suman Sayami, another Newa mayoral candidate, also has worked in these area and if he bags good number of votes, then it is good for Balen because these will be the votes from the pockets of Keshav Sthapit and Srijana Singh.

Hence, keeping this core area in mind, we can roughly predict the vote outcome in major three ways as follows:

   ·       If he bags 35% from all of outer Kathmandu and nil from the core Kathmandu, Balen will get around 54K votes. Contrariwise, let's estimate, Keshav Sthapit will get 25% (according to the current trends) votes from outer Kathmandu and 35% vote from core Kathmandu, then Sthapit will reach to the cut-throat competition range to Balen .i.e around 55K votes. That means, in this case Keshav Sthapit will win. But it is not happening because Balen will get at least a few thousand votes from these areas too.

   ·       In any case if Balen is getting more than 5% vote count from the core (given that he gains the same pattern of votes from outer Kathmandu), he is certainly going to win his close opponent by more than at least 15K votes.

So, let's suppose Balen is the Mayor. What challenges he does have?

Challenge No: 1

As is known, KTM is long run by traditional party government. They have this significant network of party cadres penetrating deep into the wards from and across the federal and provincial governments. Can Balen cut back that strong network to get the things done according to his vision? It is because, the cabal of political parties are there at the very metropolis office too. Will he be able to make the staff− who are essentially the cadres of existing political parties −work earnestly in his favor?

Challenge No: 2

In the same manner as Balen, Sunita Dangol is winning the election in the post of Upa Mayor. Now, he will have to face daily obstacle in his work if Sunita Dangol does not listen to her heart and only listen to CPN UML's mandate instead. Since now she comes from the party base, though quite recently, she might as well pose a roar upon Balen's vision-directed projects and campaigns.

Challenges No: 3

Yes, he will be the mayor but without top and base. In each wards there will be the representative elected from any one of the political parties. He will have to have a really good convincing power to implement his ideas from other party's ward chairs. And also, he will have a poor connection to the central government since he is not from the long-run party politics. There are ties, you need a support from the federal and provincial government.

Having all said, I wish he can convince all who are concerned and get things done efficiently, and make Kathmandu great like never before. Best wishes!!