2.2 Qualification of Voters, Candidates

The voter: Nepali citizen; 18 years on the qualifying date; the registration in the roll of the constituency of residence. The candidate (Article 87's ladder and the statutes' detail): citizen; 25 years for the House of Representatives, 35 for the National Assembly, 21 forlocal bodies; the nomination's mechanics (the proposer-and-seconder signatures; the deposit — the Act's security, forfeited below the vote threshold); the disqualifications: conviction of moral- turpitude offences with unserved sentence (Article 87's own bar — the Kamlesh Dwivedi case's principle: it takes a judicial decision, not an inquiry commission's report, to disqualify), the office- of-profit bar, mental incapacity, undischarged insolvency-faces (the Act's list); the candidacy'sown limits (one candidacy in one's own name — the anti-hedging rule; the resignation-required bar for the office-holders). The EC's final word: the candidacy-legitimacy decisions are the Commission's (Article 246's text) — subject to the writ jurisdiction.