Nepalese Crisis and Possible Interventions in the Context of Its Electoral Delimitation and Governing Structure
Nepalese Crisis and Possible Interventions in the Context of Its Electoral Delimitation and Governing Structure
Deepak Thapa1,2,3,4
1Akshamala Research Technology and Innovation, Kathmandu, Nepal.
2Business Consulting Group, Kathmandu, Nepal.
3Accountability Initiative, Kathmandu, Nepal.
4Neeti Anushandhan Pratishthan, Nepal (NeNAP), Kathmandu, Nepal.
DOI: 10.4236/jss.2026.143028
1. Introduction
The government in this fast-paced, interconnected, multidisciplinary, and postmodern world has a vital role in maintaining multi-faceted development indicators on the one hand, and on the other, in ensuring as affordable a size of government (i.e., public expenditure) as possible to impose as little tax or non-tax burden as possible on its citizens in order to strengthen a low cost of living and to promote individuals’ healthy economic interaction, participation, and contribution to the national economy. Thus, for any government, balancing between government size or public expenditure and public services or achieving certain economic development indicators is important to achieve maximum growth.
As far as Nepal’s context is concerned, after the implementation of its federalism due to its large governing structure (Federal, provincial, and local) instrumented by its mixed electoral system & electoral delimitation and according to the increasing demand for a well-realized wider range of public services and growth requirement; the government has increased and has been trying to boost its revenue even by reforming and imposing heavier tax and non-tax sources without considering the rational proportion of social sacrifice and social benefit the people are receiving. Thus, the unanswered question of the balance between marginal social sacrifice or public expenditure and marginal social benefit or public benefit has been a significant issue. In addition, the mixed electoral system with FPTP (First-Past-The-Post System) and PR (Proportional Representation) streams has not only made the governing structure overburdened but also its electoral delimitation raises the question about “equitable representation,” mal-distribution of electoral constituencies, and gerrymandering.
The various researchers, politicians, and academicians of Nepal have not only been raising their concerns about the growing pessimistic status of most of its economic indicators but also continuously sensitizing and alarming for its oversized federal structure and the economic drawbacks it has been bringing. Are these economic indicators really going through pessimism or at the level of crisis? If so, what are its possible rational interventions? These are the questions the research paper will be analyzing in more detail based on a figure-to-figure basis in its further discussion chapter. Furthermore, having altogether 761 governments (1 federal, 7 state, 753 local units) and, as reported, oversized governments along with the 275-member-sized Federal Assembly, 550-member-sized State Assembly, and 59-member-sized National Assembly are on the one hand striking questions against its upper government structure; and, on the other hand, altogether having a total of 37,012 political posts (*Appendix for source) for all three government structures is also raising questions about its size and unhealthy and expensive operating costs. These also raise questions such as: Is Nepal, being smaller than even a single state of any big country and having only a total area of 147,181 km2 with just a total population of 29,618,118, big enough to have these big federal structures? Is the structure really overburdening in the context of both governing structure and electoral delimitation? If so, what are the possible structural interventions? These are exactly what this paper is going to explore throughout this research effort.