Electoral Systems of Nepal (नेपालको निर्वाचन प्रणाली): TYPES, PROS & CONS: Suresh Humagain

● The representatives of peoples are elected through their secret ballot based on adult franchise. It is necessary to convert the votes into seats. The rule of converting “votes into seats” is electoral system. ● There are altogether 12 electoral systems within the four major electoral system families namely: plurality/ majority, proportional representation, mixed and others. ● All electoral systems have their own features. Because of the special features of each of these systems, there appear different results in the number of representation and its form even though the number of votes remain the same. ● In order to achieve peace, stability and prosperity and to address special circumstances of political change or specific issues recognized by the state most of the countries in the world have chosen new electoral system instead of the electoral system being used in the past. ● After the people’s movement of 2005/2006, we (Nepal) have opted for the mixed electoral system instead of the plurality/majority electoral system in order to manage the political conflict and to address the religious, cultural and social diversity of the country. The elections of the Constituent Assembly held in 2008 and 2013 were held adopting the mixed electoral system.