Nepal - January 2026

On 2 January, the Supreme Court ordered the Election Commission to strengthen enforcement of an existing requirement that political parties include at least one person with a disability in their proportional-representation candidate lists. Of Nepal’s total lower house seats, 165 are elected by single member constituencies and 110 through proportional representation. Parties with non-compliant lists for the forthcoming parliamentary election were required to revise them, and the Commission said it would reject any list that remained non-compliant. The order followed a petition by disability rights activists and sought to put Nepal’s constitutional and legal guarantees of disability representation into practice.

Sources:  The Kathmandu Post (1), The Kathmandu Post (2), Online Khabar