Disloyalty does not always go unrewarded. Santosh Kumar Pandey, Lumbini Province’s minister for urban development, knows this as well as anyone. Having defied his party to keep a CPN-UML-led government afloat in the province, Pandey was appointed to his fourth ministerial portfolio on August 25. Ten days later, the Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal expelled him.

Pandey, elected from Rupandehi-3(1), offers a more flattering explanation. “Every government should represent Madhesh and its communities,” said Pandey, who has been called ‘the evergreen minister’. “I have played a leading role in pushing for that, which is why my name keeps coming up when ministers are chosen.”

In Nepal’s provincial politics, expulsion from a party has ceased to be a sentence and become something closer to an intermission. Coalitions shift, and the banished lawmaker drifts back to the Cabinet table. Governments are enlarged, reshuffled and enlarged again, to keep alliances intact, to welcome new partners and to see that no overlooked legislator waits indefinitely for their turn.

Since the provincial assemblies began their current terms in January 2023, 301 of the country’s 550 provincial lawmakers—or about 55 percent—have served as ministers or state ministers at least once. In Sudurpaschim, 41 of 53 lawmakers, more than three in four, have held ministerial offices. Of the 12 who have not, two are the speaker and deputy speaker, and one has left the assembly. In Karnali, 26 of 40 have served as ministers, while in Koshi the figure is 64 of 93. In Bagmati and Madhesh, about 45 percent of lawmakers have already had a ministerial stint. Gandaki has seen 30 of its 60 lawmakers become ministers.

The number is likely to rise further before the provincial assemblies complete their terms. With governments continuing to form and collapse, pressure to bring more lawmakers into the Cabinet is unlikely to let up.

Most provinces lack a single-party majority, so their governments are dependent on coalitions, and coalitions are held together by Cabinet seats. Those coalitions keep time with the federal capital, as tides keep time with the moon. When the balance shifts in Kathmandu, alliances in provinces rearrange themselves in its wake, and each new arrangement comes with a bill, payable in seats. New allies expect their share of ministerial posts; lawmakers who were previously left out demand their turn.

Nepal’s provinces were meant to bring the government closer to the people and to set development by local need. Increasingly, they look like places to haggle over ministerial portfolios. The costs are borne by ordinary citizens, as political horse-trading stalls budgets, disrupts public services and leaves development projects unfinished, interviews with more than a dozen officials, experts and ordinary people show. The phenomenon does not necessarily signal the failure of federalism, one expert said, but it has certainly undermined its credibility.

Provincial leaders say the problem stems from the compulsions of coalition politics.

Former Sudurpaschim chief minister Kamal Bahadur Shah said coalition governments are under constant pressure to expand their cabinets to stay in power. In his experience, any shift in the federal power equation quickly reverberates through the provinces.

Karnali’s recent political history illustrates the point.

Yam Lal Kandel became chief minister on April 9, 2024, spearheading a coalition between the UML and then Maoist Centre. About four months later, the coalition in Kathmandu changed, and Kandel agreed to share the chief minister’s post with the Nepali Congress for half a term. He sought and secured a second vote of confidence on August 5, 2024. Two years later, on July 28, 2026, Mangal Bahadur Shahi replaced him as chief minister.

That one man could lead two different coalitions suggests that provincial governments are shaped less by provincial mandates than by the balance of power in Kathmandu.

Political analyst Khim Lal Devkota, who has written extensively about federalism, said Nepal’s problems at the provincial level should not be taken as proof that federalism itself has failed. “It, however, has been discredited by turning it into a factory for producing ministers,” he said.

The problems, he said, reflect how the system has been implemented and used for political ends. 

It is a pattern that young Nepalis have already shown they are tired of. The Gen Z protests of September 2025, sparked by anger at corruption and a ruling class embroiled in coalition politics—rotating among itself—toppled a government in Kathmandu. The provinces, it seems, did not get the message. 

Krishna Bahadur GC, chief whip of the Nepali Communist Party in Karnali, said lawmakers who have not previously held ministerial office are given priority, alongside considerations of geography, gender and inclusion.

In practice, however, it looks less like a push for inclusion than a way of parcelling out Cabinet posts to keep coalitions together. Sudurpaschim offers perhaps the clearest example. Nineteen of the Nepali Communist Party’s 22 lawmakers, nine of the UML’s 11, and 13 of the Nepali Congress’s 19 have served as ministers. In Karnali, all 14 lawmakers from the Nepali Communist Party have held ministerial office. In Koshi, Nepali Congress lawmaker Pradip Kumar Sunuwar has served as a minister four times, while Nepali Communist Party lawmakers Jeevan Acharya, Kamal Prasad Jabegu and Rajendra Karki have each served three times. In Gandaki, Nepal Samajbadi Party lawmaker Phanindra Devkota has become energy, water resources and water supply minister for the third time. 

With ministerial offices becoming so widely distributed, questions about the balance between government and opposition are inevitable. A provincial assembly is meant to hold the government to account, not serve as a waiting room for ministerial posts, experts say. Yet 301 of 550 members have already served in government. That raises a basic question: how independent and effective can legislative oversight be when more than half of lawmakers have had a place in the Cabinet?

Gokarna Bista, a former federal minister and UML leader, said federal and provincial governments have failed to exercise the autonomy envisaged by the constitution. The fallout is evident in everything from government formation and budget-making to the implementation of development projects.

“Provincial governments are meant to function autonomously,” he said, “but instead they have become extensions of political bargaining.”

Bista’s own party has been a partner in coalitions in Lumbini, Karnali and Sudurpaschim.

The bill of shifting coalitions, however, is not payable only in seats. Its consequences are being felt in development projects and in services that citizens rely on every day.

In Sudurpaschim, one of the clearest examples is in the health system. Bhagwati Bam, 30, from Jukot in Bajura, went to the district hospital in Martadi last week. The doctor recommended iron tablets. The hospital had none.

“The doctor prescribed iron tablets, but they did not have any and told me to buy them from the market,” she said. “The province has not released its budget, so apparently the free medicines have run out.”

The district hospital is supposed to provide 98 types of medicines free of charge. Most are now out of stock. District hospitals fall under provincial governments. As the Sudurpaschim government failed to present its budget for the current fiscal year on time, hospitals in Bajura and other districts are facing shortages of medicines meant for free distribution. According to Bajura District Hospital’s information officer Nriparaj Giri, even the most common pain reliever, paracetamol, is being handed out in small quantities. 

“We have no word yet on when the budget will be released. Without the money, how can we even call a tender?” Giri said. “And once the tender is called, it could take another two months for the medicines to reach the district. We’re in serious trouble.”

Sudurpaschim has been on budget holiday since mid-July. It is the second time the province has been left without a functioning budget because of changes in government and the ruling coalition. Last fiscal year’s budget, introduced by a government led by Dirgha Bahadur Sodari, failed to pass after the coalition collapsed.

This year, a government led by Congress leader Kamal Bahadur Shah, with the UML as a coalition partner, presented the provincial budget on June 15. The UML opposed it, blocking its passage. The coalition crumbled. The Nepali Communist Party now governs the province with the UML yet again as a partner, but infighting within the alliance has once more stalled the budget.

The ramifications of the budget void extend to the civil service. According to Mekhraj Jaisi, an undersecretary at the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure Development, employees are struggling financially because they have not been paid. Lower-level staff are particularly vulnerable.

In Lumbini, projects have been left unfinished as governments change and ministers reshuffle priorities.

The provincial government allocated Rs15.1 million in fiscal year 2023-24 to build Marchawari Temple in ward 5 of Marchawari Rural Municipality, Rupandehi. At the time, Nepali Congress leader Dilli Bahadur Chaudhary was chief minister and Dhan Bahadur Maski of the then Maoist Centre was minister for economic affairs and planning. Maski made tourism infrastructure a priority, directing funds to projects in his home district as well as neighbouring Nawalparasi West and Gulmi.

That amount covered about 70 percent of the temple construction and about half of the landscaping and beautification of a pond near the temple. No further funding came in.

“The temple is half-built and has been left abandoned to deteriorate,” said Gaya Prasad Barai, chair of Marchawari Rural Municipality. “Our hands are tied because the project requires a large sum of money. The ministers changed, the funding stopped, and the temple was left unfinished.”

In ward 11 of Sunwal Municipality in Nawalparasi West, the province allocated Rs5 million to build a multicultural village. The initial funding covered about 30 percent of the work, including revisions to the detailed project report. No further money followed. The structures have been left incomplete.

In Gulmi, Rs1 million was allocated to develop the Sindurghase tourism site in wards 2 and 3 of Chandrakot Rural Municipality. Some infrastructure was built with the money, but the project has been stalled for three years as the remaining funds never came in.

“We have repeatedly asked successive ministers to allocate the money needed to complete the projects, but they never make the cut,” said Chandrakot Rural Municipality chair Yubaraj Khatri.

In all three cases, money was allocated, work began, and public funds were spent. Then the government and ministers changed, and so did the priorities.

The scale of the shift can be seen directly in the budget figures in the province. After Maski presented his budget in June 2023, the government changed in March 2024. CPN-UML leader Chet Narayan Acharya then became minister for economic affairs and planning. His budget cut most of the previous government’s projects and added new ones.

Just three months later, the government changed again. When Nepali Congress lawmaker Dhanendra Karki became economic affairs and planning minister, his budget in June 2025 cut roughly 70 percent of the projects from the previous years and introduced new ones.

In the budget for fiscal year 2026-27, about 700 unfinished projects from the previous year were again dropped, while nearly 1,000 new projects were added.

Man Bahadur BK, a former secretary of the Lumbini provincial assembly, said ministers play a central role in setting policy and development priorities. “Frequent changes in ministers affect policy stability and development projects,” he said. “Without policy stability, projects also lose continuity during implementation.”

The cost of repeated government changes is also visible in development spending and budget implementation.

Sudurpaschim, for example, spent only 61.22 percent of its allocated capital budget in fiscal year 2022-23; 62.09 percent in 2023-24; 66.50 percent in 2024-25; and 58.33 percent in 2025-26. Karnali has performed similarly. It spent 64.54 percent of its capital budget in 2022-23; 54.67 percent in 2023-24; 58.70 percent in 2024-25; and 55.74 percent in 2025-26.

The figures suggest that frequent changes of government disrupt spending plans and shift development priorities. Budget approval can be delayed, while administrative decisions and procurement are thrown off course. The result is poor budget execution, as seen in the capital spending records of Karnali and Sudurpaschim.

Pitambar Dhakal, a former dean at Mid-West University, said stable governments can ensure continuity in development and public services. Political instability, by contrast, can push governments into a rush to spend as the fiscal year draws to a close, fuelling poorly planned and hastily executed projects.

UML leader Bista said Nepal should have established policies and standards to ensure that political changes at the centre do not automatically destabilise provincial governments. 

When one government starts a project, and its successor does not take ownership and carry it forward, development suffers, and public expectations go unmet, he said.

Political analyst Devkota said that such a tendency has prevented the provinces from developing as political institutions capable of making decisions according to their own circumstances and mandates.

“Political parties also need to restructure their own organisations and decision-making processes if the provinces are to develop institutionally,” he said.

Devkota said provincial cabinets should be made smaller. The constitution currently allows provincial governments to have ministries equivalent to up to 20 percent of the total membership of their assembly. He wants that ceiling reduced to 10 percent, with provinces that have smaller assemblies limited to five to seven ministers. He has also called for fixed terms for chief ministers and changes to the electoral system to improve government stability.

Dinesh Shrestha, chair of the policy research centre North South Collectives, however, says legal and structural reforms alone will not fix the problem. Unless political parties change how they operate, meaningful improvement is unlikely, he adds.

“The tendency at the centre has simply been replicated at the provincial and local levels,” said Shrestha. “The parties at the centre have continued to control politics all the way down.”

As a result, changes in federal governments continue to reverberate through the provinces. That has helped create the system in which lawmakers such as Santosh Kumar Pandey can return to ministerial office again and again. 

Major established parties have shown little sign of changing their approach to the provinces even after suffering heavy losses in the March election. That helps explain why governments in the provinces continue to rise and fall.

The Gen Z protests that forced the snap election were, at heart, a protest against exactly this: a political class in which the same faces cycle through office while services fail. A year on, in Sudurpaschim, a woman still cannot get iron tablets at the district hospital while a budget sits stalled over cabinet seats.

“It was because of this very tendency that people became disillusioned with the old parties,” Shrestha said. “And that frustration was expressed forcefully in the snap elections.”

Pandey, for his part, does not appear to be all that bothered.

Reporting by Arjun Shah, Ghanshyam Gautam, Deepak Pariyar, Pratap Bista, Ajit Tiwari, Parbat Portel and Krishna Prasad Gautam.