Local & Provincial Elections in Nepal Explained: 753 Local Levels, 7 Ballot Positions and the 7 Provincial Assemblies

The Constitution of Nepal, promulgated on 20 September 2015, transformed the country from a unitary state into a federal democratic republic with three orders of government: a federal (central) level, seven provinces, and 753 local levels. Each tier has its own directly elected legislature, its own executive and a constitutionally defined list of exclusive and concurrent powers. This article explains the two tiers that sit below the federal Parliament: the local governments and the provincial assemblies.

Federalism was introduced to bring decision-making and public services closer to citizens and to give long-marginalised regions, castes, ethnic groups and women a guaranteed share of elected power. The transition was given effect through a restructuring of the old system of district development committees, municipalities and village development committees into the new local units, and through provincial and federal elections. The first full set of elections under the new system was held in 2017, and the second cycle in 2022, so that local, provincial and federal representatives are now elected on regular five-year cycles.

Local government is the foundation of the federal structure. Nepal is divided into 753 local levels (also called local units or palika), spread across its 77 districts and 7 provinces. These local levels are the closest government to ordinary citizens and are responsible for matters such as basic and secondary education, local roads, drinking water, sanitation, local health posts, agriculture extension, vital registration (births, deaths, marriages) and local economic development.

The 753 units fall into four legal categories, which differ mainly in population size, infrastructure and urban character rather than in their core constitutional powers. Larger cities are designated metropolitan or sub-metropolitan, smaller urban areas are municipalities, and predominantly rural areas are rural municipalities (gaunpalika). Every local level is further subdivided into wards, the smallest administrative unit; in total Nepal has 6,743 wards across all local levels.

Each local level has an executive and a legislature. The executive is headed by a mayor (in a metropolitan, sub-metropolitan or municipality) or a chairperson (in a rural municipality), together with a deputy mayor or a vice-chairperson. The executive also includes all the ward chairpersons of the unit, plus additional women and Dalit/minority members chosen indirectly by the assembly, ensuring inclusion at the executive table.

The legislature is the village or municipal assembly (also called the deliberative body), which makes local laws and approves the budget. It is made up of the directly elected officials of the local level: the mayor/chairperson, the deputy/vice-chairperson, every ward chairperson, and four ward members from each ward. To ensure inclusion, of the four members in every ward at least two must be women, and one of those women must come from the Dalit community.

At the district level there is also a District Coordination Committee (DCC) in each of the 77 districts. The DCC is not directly elected by voters; its nine members—including a chief and a deputy chief, at least three women and one Dalit or minority member—are chosen indirectly by the elected representatives of the district's local levels. Its role is to coordinate between the local units and the province rather than to deliver services itself.

Local elections are unusual in that a single voter casts votes for several offices at once. On election day a voter at a local level receives a ballot covering seven distinct positions, all elected by first-past-the-post (the candidate with the most votes wins). Voters who live in the same local level all vote for the same mayor/chair and deputy, but the ward-level positions differ depending on which ward the voter lives in.

Two of these positions are for the local level as a whole (the mayor/chairperson and the deputy mayor/vice-chairperson), and five are for the voter's own ward (the ward chairperson plus four ward members). Of the four ward-member seats, two are reserved: one for a woman and one specifically for a Dalit woman, while the remaining two open seats may be filled by candidates of any gender. This guarantees that women, and Dalit women in particular, are present in every ward assembly across the country. Political parties fielding candidates for both the top two posts must also ensure at least one of the mayor/deputy pair is a woman.

Above the local level sit Nepal's seven provinces, each with its own unicameral Provincial Assembly. The seven provinces are Koshi, Madhesh, Bagmati, Gandaki, Lumbini, Karnali and Sudurpashchim. Together the seven assemblies have 550 seats, distributed among the provinces broadly in proportion to population—for example Bagmati has 110 seats and Madhesh 107, while Karnali has 40 and Sudurpashchim 53.

The Provincial Assembly is the province's law-making body for matters within provincial jurisdiction, such as provincial roads, provincial-level health and education, agriculture, and intra-province trade. From among its members, the assembly produces the province's government: the Chief of Province (the head of state for the province, appointed by the federal President) appoints as Chief Minister the leader of the party or coalition that commands a majority in the assembly. Under Article 168 of the Constitution, a Chief Minister must win a vote of confidence in the assembly, and the provincial council of ministers may not exceed 20 percent of the total assembly members. The assembly serves a five-year term unless dissolved earlier.

Provincial assembly members are elected by a mixed (parallel) electoral system, and each voter casts two separate ballots. About 60 percent of seats—330 of the 550—are filled by first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting in single-member constituencies, where the candidate with the most votes in each constituency wins. The remaining 40 percent—220 seats—are filled by closed-list proportional representation (PR).

Under the PR ballot, voters vote for a political party rather than an individual. Each province's 40 percent share of PR seats is then allocated to parties in proportion to the share of the PR vote they win, provided a party clears a threshold of at least 1.5 percent of the national PR vote. Because the lists are 'closed', the party—not the voter—decides the order in which its candidates take the seats it earns, and the lists are required to reflect Nepal's diversity, including women and disadvantaged groups. This same two-ballot FPTP-plus-PR design is also used for the federal House of Representatives, making it the standard model for Nepali parliamentary elections.

Elections at all three tiers are administered by the Election Commission of Nepal, an independent constitutional body. The most recent local elections were held in May 2022 and the provincial (and federal) elections in November 2022.