General Information
At Stake in this Election:
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275 members of the House of Representatives of Nepal
Note: The 2022 HoR elections will happen concurrently with the Provincial Assembly elections. While ElectionGuide does not cover regional elections, more information can be found in IFES’s Nepal Election FAQs (linked below)
Government Structure:
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Chief of State: President Bidya Devi BHANDARI
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Head of Government: Prime Minister Sher Bahadur DEUBA
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Assembly: Bicameral Parliament consisting of a 275-member House of Representatives and a 59-member National Assembly
Electoral System:
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The President is elected by an Electoral College consisting of voting members of the Federal Parliament and the members of Provincial Assembly. If no candidate receives a majority of the votes, another election is held with the top two candidates. The President is elected to a five-year term, with a maximum of two consecutive terms.
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The Vice-Presidential election is held after the President is elected, due to a constitutional provision that the President and Vice President must represent different sexes or different ethnic communities. The Vice-Presidential election follows the same process as the Presidential election.
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The Prime Minister is appointed by the President. They must first receive a majority of votes from the House of Representatives or by gathering votes of confidence from House of Representatives members, is appointed by the President.
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Of the 275 members of the House of Representatives, 165 will be elected from single-member constituencies by first-past-the-post voting and 110 seats will be elected by closed list proportional representation from a single nationwide constituency. Voters use two separate ballot papers to vote, one ballot for first-past-the-post candidates and one ballot for proportional representation lists. They are elected to five-year terms.
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The 59 members of the National Assembly are indirectly elected to six-year terms. Each of the seven provinces elects 8 members each and the Cabinet of Nepal nominates 3 members and recommends to the President for approval. Out of the eight members from each province, three must be women, one must be from the Dalit community, and one must be a disabled person or from a minority community.
Main Parties in this Election:
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Communist Party of Nepal – United Marxist Leninist
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Leader: K.P. Sharma OLI
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Seats won in last election: 121
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Nepali Congress
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Leader: Sher Bahadur DEUBA
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Seats won in last election: 64
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Communist Party of Nepal - Maoist Centre
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Leader: Pushpa Kamal DAHAL
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Seats won in last election: 53
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Communist Party of Nepal - Unified Socialist
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Leader: Madhav Kumar NEPAL
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Seats won in last election: N/A
Population and Registered Voters:
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Population: 30,666,598 (2022 est.)1
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Registered Voters: 17,988,570
Gender Data:
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Female Population: 14,511,872 (2020 est.)2
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Is Nepal a signatory to CEDAW: Yes (05 Feb 1991)3
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Has Nepal ratified CEDAW: Yes (22 Apr 1991)4
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Gender Quota: Yes, seats are reserved for women, as well as mandatory quotas for each political party.5
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Female Candidates in this election: Yes, 225
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Number of Female Legislators (pre-election): 91 out of 271 in the House of Representatives (33.6%); 22 out of 59 in the National Assembly (37.3%)6
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Human Development Index (HDI) Position: Rank 143 at 0.602 (2021)7
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Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) Categorization: High at 0.3222 (2014)8
Disability Data:
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Is Nepal a signatory to CRPD: Yes (03 Jan 2008)9
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Has Nepal ratified CRPD: Yes (07 May 2010)10
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Population with a disability: 4,599,945 (2022 est.)
IFES Resources:
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Does IFES have a presence in Nepal: Yes, Country Office11
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Election FAQs: Yes12
1. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/nepal/#people-and-society
2. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/nepal/#people-and-society
3. https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/TreatyBodyExternal/Treaty.aspx?Treaty=CEDAW&Lang=en
4. https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/TreatyBodyExternal/Treaty.aspx?Treaty=CEDAW&Lang=en
5. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/gender-quotas/country-view/229/35
6. https://data.ipu.org/women-ranking?month=9&year=2022
7. https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/specific-country-data#/countries/NPL
8. https://www.genderindex.org/country/nepal-2014-results/
9. https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/TreatyBodyExternal/Treaty.aspx?Treaty=CEDAW&Lang=en
10. https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/TreatyBodyExternal/Treaty.aspx?Treaty=CEDAW&Lang=en