Amount spent on election campaign ads by candidates in Nepal
11/26/2022
The Election Commission of Nepal, had imposed a expenditure limit for political parties or candidates contesting in November election of 2022. In the election of the House of Representatives for first past the post type, the limit of election expenses in the constituencies 1, 3, 6, 7 and 8 of Kathmandu is Rs 2.5m. Similarly, Rs 2.7m for 17 constituencies, Rs 2.9m for 65 constituencies, Rs 3.1m for 52 constituencies and Rs 3.3m in 26 constituencies is fixed by the EC.
Similarly, in the election of the Province Assembly for first past the post type, the extent of election expenditure is the mentioned Rs 1.5m for 70 constituencies, Rs 1.7m for 143 constituencies, Rs 1.9m for 56 constituencies, Rs 2.1m for 29 constituencies and Rs 2.3m for 32 constituencies. [1]
Social Media marketing and advertising is a key part of any election in 2022 and Facebook being the most popular social media platform in Nepal was filled with ads from candidates. Facebook's parent company Meta with the intention of increasing transparency in political and social issues has made the data of the ads public. The data is available here and I have parsed the data of top 100 highest spending candidates and visualized the amount spent on ads by candidates.
Similarly, in the election of the Province Assembly for first past the post type, the extent of election expenditure is the mentioned Rs 1.5m for 70 constituencies, Rs 1.7m for 143 constituencies, Rs 1.9m for 56 constituencies, Rs 2.1m for 29 constituencies and Rs 2.3m for 32 constituencies. [1]
Social Media marketing and advertising is a key part of any election in 2022 and Facebook being the most popular social media platform in Nepal was filled with ads from candidates. Facebook's parent company Meta with the intention of increasing transparency in political and social issues has made the data of the ads public. The data is available here and I have parsed the data of top 100 highest spending candidates and visualized the amount spent on ads by candidates.
Brief summary of the data
1,500+
Pages
Ran political/social issue ads
9,300+
Ads Created
Sep 7, 2022 - Nov 23, 2022
150,000+
Amount Spent (USD)
As high as 5,968$ by a single candidate
Interesting observation that we can make here is that the amount spent on Bagmati region is 218x more than the amount spent on Karnali region. While Bagmati had the most amount spent on ads with $71,316, Narayani is second with $14,510 by a big margin. Shree Gurung, Candidate of Kathmandu - 5 for house of representatives, spent $5968 which is more than the amount spent by all candidates/pages in Seti, Dhawalagiri, Mahakali, Karnali combined.
