Evaluate Nepal's mixed electoral system (FPTP + PR) in the context of ensuring inclusive representation while maintaining governability.

Q. Evaluate Nepal's mixed electoral system (FPTP + PR) in the context of ensuring inclusive representation while maintaining governability. (15 marks, 250-350 words)

The Constitution of Nepal, 2015 created a 275-member Pratinidhi Sabha — 165 seats by First-Past-The-Post and 110 by nationwide party-list Proportional Representation with a 3% threshold [1]. This mixed design deliberately traded a degree of governability for inclusion; nearly a decade on, it has delivered the first promise far better than the second.

Merits: it has widened representation

• Mandated social inclusion: PR lists must carry women, Dalits, Janajatis, Madhesis, Tharus and Muslims, converting the 2015 Constitution's social-justice guarantee into actual seats [2].
• Voice for dispersed minorities: treating the country as a single PR constituency lets parties with thin, scattered support — Madhesi and identity-based outfits — enter Parliament, which pure FPTP would erase [1].
• Two ballots, two logics: the voter separates the local candidate from the preferred party, while the FPTP half preserves constituency accountability [1].

Demerits: it has weakened governability

• Chronic fragmentation: no party has won a majority; Nepal has seen more than a dozen Prime Ministers since 2008, with governments consumed by coalition arithmetic and defections [3].
• Policy discontinuity: a remittance-dependent economy — remittances near a quarter of GDP in recent years — needs sustained structural reform that revolving-door cabinets cannot deliver [4].
• Inclusion turning nominal: closed lists are controlled by party leaderships, making PR seats instruments of patronage rather than genuine group representation.
• Legitimacy cost: accumulated misgovernance triggered the September 2025 Gen Z protests (77 deaths) and the snap poll of 5 March 2026, held two years early amid expectations of another hung House [3].

On balance, the system is a success in representation and an underperformer in stability — yet the instability springs less from the formula than from weak intra-party democracy and lax anti-defection enforcement. Democratising list selection, calibrating the threshold and strengthening floor-crossing discipline would let Nepal keep its inclusive constitutional bargain while giving voters the stable, reform-capable government the 2026 verdict demands.

(~320 words)

Sources: 1. Federal Parliament of Nepal — Constitutional Provisions on the House of Representatives — 275 seats, 165 FPTP + 110 nationwide PR, 3% threshold, two-ballot system 2. IFES, Factsheet on Electoral Provisions in Nepal's New Constitution (2016) — mandated inclusion of women, Dalits, Janajatis, Madhesis and other groups in PR lists 3. The Hindu, "What will Nepal's landmark general election decide?" (5 March 2026) — PM turnover since 2008, September 2025 protests and 77 deaths, early election of 5 March 2026, hung-parliament expectation 4. World Bank, Nepal Development Update / Personal remittances received (% of GDP), Nepal — scale of Nepal's remittance dependence