Gender Quotas Database
Nepal
Southern Asia
Single / Lower House
Sambidhan Sabha/Sansad/Constituent Assembly/Legislature/Parliament
| Total seats | 272 |
| Total women | 90 |
| Percentage of women | 33% |
| Gender Quota target | 33% |
| Election year | 2022 |
| Electoral system | Parallel |
| Quota type | Reserved seats |
| Election details | IDEA Voter Turnout - IPU Parline |
| Legal source | Details | |
|---|---|---|
| Quota type: Reserved seats | Constitution |
Composition of House of Representatives: (2) ... representation shall be ensured on the basis of a closed list also from women, ... (8) Notwithstanding anything contained elsewhere in this Part, at least one third of the total number of members elected from each political party representing in the Federal Parliament shall be women. In case women are not so elected as to constitute one third of the elected members of any political party pursuant to subclause (a) of clause (1) and sub-clause (a) of clause (2) of Article 86, such political party must, in electing members under sub-clause (b) of clause (1), so elect that women members constitute at least one third of the total number of members elected to the Federal Parliament from that party. (Article 84) |
| 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 |
| Percentage of women | 37% |
| Gender Quota target | 2% |
| Election year | 2022 |
| Electoral system | Indirectly elected |
| Quota type | Reserved seats |
| Election details | IPU Parline |
| Legal source | Details | |
|---|---|---|
| No data available | ||
Quota at the Sub-National Level
| Quota type | Legislated Candidate Quotas |
| Gender Quota target | 33% |
| Legal source | Details | |
|---|---|---|
| Quota type: Legislated Candidate Quotas | Electoral law |
... the party submitting the nomination papers shall follow the process of submission of nomination papers in such a way that fifty percent of the chairman and deputy chairman, chairman and deputy chairman and chairman and deputy chairman of the district council are women. (Article 17.4) |
Voluntary Political Party Quotas*
| Party | Official Name | Details, Quota provisions |
|---|---|---|
| No data available. | ||
* Only political parties represented in parliament are included. When a country has legislated quotas in place, only political parties that have voluntary quotas that exceed the percentage/number of the national quota legislation are presented in this table.
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).
Sources
Legal Sources:
- Constitution of Nepal - Nepali/ English
- Electoral Laws - Link
- Political Parties Act (amended through 2021) - Link
- Local Level Election Act 2017 - Link
Other Sources:
- Women Candidacy under Nepal’s First-Past-the-Post System 2023 - Link
- OBSERVATION OF NEPAL LOCAL LEVEL ELECTION 2022 - Link
- Parliament of Nepal - Link
- Election Commission - Link
- Nepal Law Commission - Link
- EU Election Observation Mission to Nepal 2017
- Women’s Caucus in the Constituent Assembly
Additional reading
- See the latest updates on Nepal on iKNOW Politics
- 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].
- 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.
- 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/
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