Team Samsad

Our research mainly focuses on studying the representation of minorities and underrepresented in the legislative parliament of Nepal. It tries to understand the structure of federal parliament and understand how changes in those structures can impact the representation of people in the parliament.

Quiz

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1/9

Which minority dominates the parliament of Nepal?

Highlights

There is a legal provision of a compensatory system for women in the constitution. The constitution has a provision that there must be at least 33.33% of women in the federal parliament. This would mean that the less the women are elected through FPTP, parties would be compelled to send more women from their PR list. This includes the fact that there is an existing provision that at least 50% of members sent from the PR list by parties need to be women. However, in certain circumstances, parties will need to send more women if sending the required 50% of PR members doesn't suffice to ensure that the federal parliament has at least one third women in totality.

The ratio of FPTP: PR in the lower house of the federal parliament is 60:40. A curious question would be to ask why those numbers? Why 60 and why 40? While there can be a political flavour to the decision, some technicalities also seem to be playing a role here. With the 33.33% minimum requirement of women in the federal parliament, 60:40 seems to technically be the required option for FPTP:PR ratio. With the present percent of women elected through FPTP(~3.63%) in the lower house, the ratio 70:30 seems to be the edge ratio that meets the constitutional requirement(Try this in our slider). With a little bit of forecast that women elected could be even less than the

For the elections after interim constitution also had a mixed electoral system. For the election to the CA, Nepal adopted a mixed parallel system (FPTP and PR) giving a greater weight to the PR, 56 % or 335 out of total 601 seats. Seats allocated for the FPTP was 240 (40%). The remaining 4% of members in the CA were nominated by the Council of Ministers. However, after the Constitution of Nepal 2072, the FPTP:PR ratio was changed to 60:40. What caused the PR weightage to decrease? Why did the constitution drafters decide to take a regressive step when the world is moving towards total proportional representation system? A few answers could denote what might have happened.

Source:

Budhi Karki, Rohan Edrisinha. "The federalism debate in Nepal" United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Shradha Ghale."Backlash against inclusion" Accord ISSUE 26, March 2017, pg 123, rc-services-assets.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/BacklashAgainstInclusion.pdf

Articles

Changes in Governance Structure in Nepal

How did the structure of Government of Nepal change from Prithvi Narayan Shah's autocratic family monarchy to today's Federal Democratic Republic? What sort of power and rights did general Nepalese people enjoy during this time?

Minority representation

Who are the minorities? Is minority representation really necessary ? Why are some ethnic groups overrepresented ?

Introduction to electoral systems in Nepal

The electoral system of Nepal has come a long way. What do you think were the new implementations made during the promulgation of constitution on 2072 BS?

Legal provisions for representation of minorities and underrepresented

What does the constitution state about the requirements for the representation of minorities and underrepresented? Are women well represented? Do all ethnic groups have mechanisms set in the constitution to ensure their voices are heard? What is the present situation?

Electoral constituency division

There are 165 electoral constituencies in Nepal. On what basis are those constituencies divided? Is Population the sole basis? What does the allocation look like on the level of each district?

Interview

Mr. Yagya Raj Pandey has completed his BALLB from Nepal Law Campus. He is pursuing an LLM from Ratna Rajya Laxmi Campus in Journalism and Mass Communications. He has also completed a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Journalism. He is also involved in Image Television as a news reporter and producer. He is also the content editor of lexnepal.com, Nepal’s first legal portal. He has been teaching law in Bachelor Entrance Examination Preparation for five years. Mr. Pandey started a YouTube channel because he thinks the language of law has been jargonized and made hard for the general public to understand. He aims to make it easy for normal citizens. Read more

Slider

This slider is for you to explore. The three sliders can be used to set up the number of women in the parliament from the upper house(which can range from 22 to 59), the percentage of women from all members elected through FPTP system and the percentage ratio of FPTP:PR. Feel free to change individual values and see if the hypothetical scenario is possible according to the requirements of the constitution. The requirement is that at least one-third(33.33%) of women in the federal parliament must be women. Also feel free to ponder why some permutations breach constitutional requirements while some do not. Have an exciting journey with the sliders then!

Women from upper house (22)

Percentage of Women from FPTP (3.63%)

Ratio of FPTP:PR (60:40)

Results

This configuration doesn't breach constitutional requirement.

Total PR seats: 110
Necessary number of women from PR seats: 84
Women from FPTP seats: 6
Women from Upper House: 22
Minimum percentage of women in the parliament ensured: 33.33