SHARECountry Data
Nepal (Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal) has a Bicameral parliament with legislated quotas for the single/lower house and upper house and at the sub-national level. 91 of 271 (34%) seats in the Sambidhan Sabha/Sansad/Constituent Assembly/Legislature/Parliament are held by women.
At a glance
Structure of Parliament: Bicameral
Are there legislated quotas...
- For the Single/Lower House? Yes
- For the Upper House? Yes
- For the Sub-National Level? Yes
Are there voluntary quotas...
- Adopted by political parties? No
Is there additional information?...
- Yes
Last updated: Nov 16, 2022
Single/Lower House
Sambidhan Sabha/Sansad/Constituent Assembly/Legislature/Parliament
| Total seats | 271 |
| Total Women | 91 |
| % Women | 34% |
| Election Year | 2021 |
| Electoral System | Parallel |
| Quota Type | Reserved seats |
| Election details | IDEA Voter Turnout - IPU Parline |
| Legal source | Details | |
|---|---|---|
| Quota type: Reserved seats | Constitution | Women should account for at least one-third of total members elected from each party represented in the Federal Parliament, Consitution Art. 84(8). Election for the Speaker and Deputy-Speaker shall be so held that there is one woman out of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker, Constitution, art. 91 (2).
|
| Electoral law | Each party must ensure that the number of women candidates is at least one third of the total number of candidates to be fielded by a political party in the proportional elections and in the first-past-the-post electoral system (Constituent Assembly Ordinance 2013). | |
| Legal sanctions for non-compliance | Electoral law | If the lists of candidates submitted for the election fail to meet the quota rule, the Commission will return the list to the party concerned in order to align the list with the gender quota regulation. in case of non- compliance, the list will be rejected (Constituent Assembly Ordinance 2013). |
| Rank order/placement rules | No | None |
| Is the provision of direct public funding to political parties related to gender equality among candidates? | No | See more in International IDEA's Political Finance database |
| Are there provisions for other financial advantages to encourage gender equality in political parties? | No | See more in International IDEA's Political Finance database |
Upper House
Rastriya Sabha / National Assembly
| Total seats | 59 |
| Total Women | 22 |
| % Women | 37% |
| Election Year | 2020 |
| Electoral System | Indirectly elected |
| Quota Type | Reserved seats> |
| Legal source | Details | |
|---|---|---|
| Quota type: Reserved seats | Electoral law | (2) The National Assembly shall consist of fifty-nine members as follows: (a) Fifty six elected members consisting of at least three women (...), (b) Three members consisting of at least one woman nominated by the President on the recommendation of the Government of Nepal (...) (Art. 86.2. in the Constitution of Nepal). |
| Legal sanctions for non-compliance | No data available | |
| Rank order/placement rules | No data available |
Quota at the Sub-National Level
- Quota type: Legislated Candidate Quotas
| Legal source | Details | |
|---|---|---|
| Quota type: Legislated Candidate Quotas | Constitution | |
| Electoral law | The 1999 Local Self Government Act states that among the nominated candidates in elections to municipal councils, at least 40% of candidates must be women (Article 76). | |
| Legal sanctions for non-compliance | No | None |
| Rank order/placement rules | No | None |
Additional Information
In 2007, an Interrim Constitution was promulgated and an election of the Constituent Assembly was held in 2008 after a decade of considerable political instability. . The new Constituent Assembly elected in November 2013 was tasked to finalize the drafting of the new constitution within the first year of its mandate. Amid fears that the number of women to be elected in 2013 CA elections would be decreased significantly, only a small decrease was noted from an earlier 33% to 30%.
In 2015, a new Constitution was finalized. The 2015 Constitution, revised in 2016, provides gender quotas both in the form of reserved seats and legislated candidate quotas (see boxes above). The electoral system and the quotas which applied to the PR elections for the House of Representatives were (50 %) for women and the other half distributed among minority groups (EU EOM 2017). The Constitution requires that at least one third of the Federal Parliament (the HoR ) are comprised by women. An overall imperative is that the entire legislature including the Provincial Assemblies shall be comprised by at least 30 % women (EU EOM 2017).
In the 2017 election, women comprised only 146 of 1,944 candidates for the HoR (7,5%), and for the Provincial Assemblies, there were only 240 female candidates from 3,238 candidates (7,4%). Of these, only six women wereelected frin tge 165 First-Past-The-Post constituencies for the HoR. Parties had to nominate at least 50% women in their PR closed lists (EU EOM 2017).
Additional reading
- See the latest updates on Nepal on iKNOW Politics
- Upreti, B. R., Upreti D., & Ghale, Y. 2020. Nepali women in politics: Success and challenges. Articles from the 5th world conference on women's studies. Journal of International Women's Studies, 21(2), Bangkok Thailand.
- Cantrell, A., Ohman, M., & Bhatta, M. (2020). The cost of representation: A study of women's representation and political finance in Nepal. International Foundation for Electoral Systems [IFES].
- Nepal Electoral Commission, https://election.gov.np/np
- Asia Foundation. 2018. Nepal's locally elected women representatives: Exploratory study of needs and capacity. Subnational Governance in Nepal.
- Karam, A. 1998. Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers. Stockholm: IDEA. Report
- Nepal Parliament website, http://www.parliament.gov.np/