Nepal’s Rocky Road to Federalism

Nepal is a least developed, land-locked Himalayan country wedged between India and China. After a long period of instability, it adopted a new constitution in 2015, creating a multi-party federal republic. Previously Nepal had been a unitary state, albeit with a long period of political instability and insurgency. The first election under the Constitution was held in 2017, and the most recent occurred on 20 November 2022, with elections being held simultaneously at all three levels of the federation. The newly elected government is optimistic about what it can achieve.

Since 2017, the country has struggled to implement federalism. The party that ruled until July 2021 was unstable. Politicians and public servants at the centre appeared not to understand the operation of a federal system fully. The then prime minister and most of the political and administrative elites were all Kathmandu-based and appeared to prefer a centralised rather than a federal system.