Vote counting continues in Nepal for the third parliamentary election held since the promulgation of the constitution in 2015. Once counting concludes, the strength of each political party in the House of Representatives will become clear. However, early trends suggest that the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) will secure a clear majority—perhaps even a two-thirds majority.

Nepal currently follows a mixed electoral system. Under this arrangement, 60 percent of representatives in the federal legislature are elected through the first-past-the-post system (FPTP) while the remaining 40 percent are selected through proportional representation (PR). Under the direct electoral system, candidates from political parties as well as independents vie for 165 seats in the House.

Following the Gen Z uprising in September last year, the House of Representatives was dissolved, and March 5 polls for a new federal parliament declared.

The lower house has 275 members, 165 of them elected through the first-past-the-post system. The remaining 110 are chosen through proportional representation.

The Election Commission collected the closed lists of proportional representation candidates from the political parties on December 29.

Among the 64 political parties that submitted the lists, only 18 have nominated all 110 PR candidates. Under the proportional system, the entire country is treated as a single constituency, and all votes are pooled together. Parliamentary seats are then allocated to parties according to the percentage of votes they receive.

In its PR list, a party can include a minimum of 11 and a maximum of 110 candidates. The composition must reflect Nepal’s population, representing Dalits, Indigenous nationalities, Khas-Arya, Madheshi, Tharus and Muslims proportionally.

According to the inclusion framework, the proportional list must have 31.2 percent Khas-Arya candidates, 28.7 percent Indigenous nationalities, 15.3 percent Madheshis, 13.8 percent Dalits, 6.6 percent Tharus, 4.4 percent Muslims, and 4 percent residents of backward regions. Within these categories, a specified proportion must also be women.

“The constitutional requirement is that women make up at least 33 percent of the total membership of Parliament,” said former election chief commissioner Bhojraj Pokharel. “To meet this requirement, the number of women already elected through the FPTP system, as well as those currently serving in the upper house, is first taken into account. If the total number of women still falls short of the 33 percent quota, the remaining seats are filled by selecting additional women through the PR system.”

According to Pokharel, the Election Commission, Nepal uses specialised software to determine the allocation of PR seats.

The valid votes are entered into the system and organised into different categories, after which the software calculates how many PR seats each political party is entitled to receive. This process helps ensure accuracy and transparency in determining the proportional distribution of seats.

After receiving their allotted number of seats, parties must nominate lawmakers from the closed lists they previously submitted to the commission.

How are seats calculated from the total proportional votes?

Under Nepal’s proportional representation system, the entire country is treated as a single constituency. According to Pokharel, all votes received by political parties across the 165 constituencies are combined and counted together for the proportional category.

To qualify for proportional seats, a political party must secure at least three percent of the total valid votes, according to the PR election directives 2025. Parties that fail to cross this threshold are not eligible for proportional seats, and the votes they get are excluded from the seat-allocation calculation.

According to Pokharel, the general process of determining proportional seats is checking the three percent threshold, identifying qualifying parties, adding the votes of qualifying parties, dividing the total votes by the number of PR seats, calculating each party’s seat share, and determining the approximate number of seats.

A hypothetical case

To illustrate, imagine that 11 million votes were cast under the proportional system nationwide. If 500,000 votes were invalid, the number of valid votes would be 10.5 million.

Assume that five parties crossed the 3 percent threshold. If the combined votes received by these five parties total 8 million, that figure becomes the basis for seat allocation. Divide 8,000,000 by 110 (the total PR seats). This gives approximately 72,727 votes per seat. If the party fails to cross the 3 percent threshold, it is not recognised as a national party. In such a case, the PR votes it receives carry no value, and the benefit of those votes ultimately goes to the parties that manage to cross the threshold.

Next, divide each qualifying party’s proportional vote total by 72,727.

For example, if a party received 3.5 million proportional votes, dividing that by 72,727 would produce 48.12. In practical terms, this means the party would secure around 48 seats under proportional representation.

The formula actually used

However, the Election Commission Nepal does not rely exactly on this simplified method. Instead, it applies its modified form, also called the Sainte-Laguë method, which is a widely used formula for vote division in proportional electoral systems.

Under this system, a party’s total votes are divided by a series of divisors, and seats are allocated based on the highest resulting values until all seats are filled. This approach helps ensure a fairer distribution of seats among qualifying parties.

After calculating the proportional seats for each party, the commission instructs the parties to submit the names of their members within a week. Parties must select representatives from the closed lists they previously submitted, prioritising candidates listed at the top of each inclusion cluster.