The election was held alongside the first provincial elections for the seven provincial assemblies.
A political deadlock between the governing Nepali Congress and the winning left-wing coalition over the system used to elect the upper house led to delay in forming the new government.[2]
The Interim Legislature was followed by the first Constituent Assembly whose task was to form a new constitution. The failure of the assembly to write a constitution within the stipulated time led to the formation of the second Constituent Assembly which approved the Constitution of Nepal on 20 September 2015. After the promulgation of constitution, the second Constituent Assembly was converted into a unitary Legislature Parliament. The constitution set the tenure of the Legislature Parliament until 21 January 2018 or the date of filing of nomination for the House of Representatives, whichever is earlier.[4] Per this provision, the tenure of the Legislature Parliament ended on 14 October 2017.
A five-member Constituency Delineation Commission was formed under the chairmanship of former Supreme Court Justice Kamal Narayan Das to redraw the constituency boundaries to 165, a reduction from the 240 used in the 2013 elections. It submitted its report to the government on 30 August 2017.[5] The boundaries set by this commission will remain unchanged for the next 20 years as per Article 286 (12).
Electoral system
The 275 members of the legislature were elected by two methods; 165 were elected from single-member constituencies by first-past-the-post voting and 110 seats were elected by closed listproportional representation from a single nationwide constituency.[6] Each voter received separate ballot papers for the two methods. A party or electoral alliance had to pass the election threshold of 3% of the overall valid vote to be allocated a seat under the proportional method.[7]
Nepal uses the Sainte-Laguë method to allocate proportional seats. Typically, the divisors under this system include all odd numbers (1, 3, 5, 7...). But in Nepal, the first divisor is 1.4, rather than 1. This is intended to make it difficult for smaller parties to get a single seat "too cheaply" as the system benefits smaller parties at the expense of larger ones.
Last day for party registration at Election Commission[10]
30 August
Election code of conduct starts
14 October
Tenure of Legislature parliament ends
15 October
Parties submit preliminary closed list for proportional representation
22 October
Candidate nomination for first phase of first past the post
2 November
Candidate nomination for second phase of first past the post
19 November
Closed list for proportional representation finalized and published
26 November
Election day (first phase) – polling centres open 07:00 to 17:00
7 December
Election day (second phase) – polling centres open 07:00 to 17:00
14 February
Final result announced and presented to President
Parties and alliances
A total of 88 parties were granted ballot access under the proportional system. However, only 49 parties submitted list of proportional candidates.[11]
Before the final phase of the election, starting 5 December, the border with India was closed at 22 points.[16] There have been over a hundred minor and major explosions in the run up to the elections targeting election assemblies and leaders.[17] A temporary police was killed in Dang from an explosion at an event attended by the Prime Minister.[18] Nepali Congress candidate Narayan Karki was injured in a targeted explosion to his vehicle in Udayapur while 11 people including former Health Minister Gagan Thapa were injured from an explosion in Kathmandu.[19]
Still, these alliances resulted in the loss of the Nepali Congress which obtained highest number of votes in FPTP, gaining nearly 36% votes cast.
In spite of this, the result went against Nepali Congress and they could not win any more than 23 seats, making it the third largest party per FPTP results. As such, many sitting ministers had to lose their seats.
The governing Nepali Congress preferred the upper house to be elected by Single Transferable Voting System while the left parties preferred majority vote. Lack of consensus meant the Legislature Parliament disbanded on 14 October, as required by the constitution, without approving National Assembly Election Bill which included provisions to elect members of the upper house.[20]
According to Article 84 (8) of the Constitution of Nepal, at least one third of the total number of members elected to the Federal Parliament from each party must be women. Citing this provision, the Election Commission withheld announcing final results as the number of women each party needs to submit from their respective party lists could not be determined until the number of women in the upper house from each party was confirmed.
The government sent the National Assembly Election Ordinance to the President on 23 October 2017 with the provision that the upper house be elected using Single Transferable Voting System.[21] The ordinance was held by the president for two months citing lack of consensus, but was ultimately approved on 29 December 2017.[22] Another delay occurred because the electoral college for the election of the upper house includes members of the State Assemblies who, due to the absence of Chiefs of State, had not been able to take the oath of office until late January.
^Electoral Roll Act, 2017(PDF) (Act 23, 6 & 23) (in Nepali). 2 February 2017. Archived from the original(PDF) on 5 September 2017. Retrieved 5 September 2017.
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