The power to have a say in her-story

Nepal’s provincial and federal elections are due on 20 November, but the political parties seem reluctant to allow their women colleagues to directly contest elections.

Prime Minister Deuba of the Nepali Congress (NC) is having a difficult time balancing the conflicting demands from four other parties in the coalition, as well as allowing female candidates to fulfil a Constitutional provision.

For K P Oli of the opposition UML, it is all about winning back the House majority even if it is just to thumb his nose at the coalition that ousted him last year. 

Both the coalition and the opposition are also wary of the crop of young independent candidates and public figures who are in the running because they are aware of public disenchantment of their non-performance. The victory of several independent candidates as mayors of Kathmandu and several other cities has also spooked them. 

There is much at stake for Deuba and his alliance, for K P Oli and opposition, as well as for the young, independent candidates that hold the attention and scrutiny of much of the Nepali public.

All this male politicking has left the women in senior leadership positions to fear that they will be sidelined in violation of Constitutional quotas for female representation.

Nepal’s Local Level Election Act requires every party to nominate one male and one female candidate to the head and deputy of municipalities. But the election alliance between the NC and the coalition parties has meant that fewer women were nominated during local elections in May.  

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As a result, there are now 163 local governments where the chair and vice chair are both men, and the number of women elected as deputies has gone down from 700 in 2017 to 564 this year.

There was a slight increase in female mayors and chiefs in 2022, with the number of female mayors going up from 18 to 25 and the number of village chiefs going up from 63 to 69.

“The statistics may show an increase in elected female officials, but women have not been elected to top decision making roles,” said National Assembly member and UML leader Parvati Rawal Thapa. “This is disheartening.”

In a rare show of solidarity, Thapa and female leaders from across the political spectrum came together to jointly register objections against their own parties for not meeting the constitutional mandate for increased female participation and candidacy in the November election.

They want their parties to field more female leaders under the direct (FPTP) election mechanism over the proportional representation (PR) system.

There are 550 provincial assembly seats across Nepal’s seven provinces, out of which 330 will be elected through the direct system and 220 through proportional representation. Meanwhile, out of the 275 members to the House of Representatives, 165 will be elected directly, and 110 through proportional representation.

Nepal’s male-dominated parties tend not to give tickets to female candidates for the direct election system, and instead field women in large numbers under the proportional system.

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Nepal held its first democratic elections in 1959, as a result of which Dwarika Devi Thakurani of the NC became the country’s first female parliamentarian. Thakurani served as deputy minister of health and local governance in the council of ministers led by B P Koirala, Nepal’s first female Cabinet member. 

In subsequent years, the number of female MPs increased steadily  mainly because the interim constitution after 2008 stipulated that women make up one-third of the total candidates.

But after 2008 the party brass changed the rules to 33% women required to win the election, as opposed to running for office. This removed any stipulation concerning direct elections, which prompted them to field women in large numbers under the proportional system in 2017.

Indeed, Article 38 (4) of the Constitution stipulates that women have the right to participate in all bodies of the state based on the principle of proportional inclusion. Additionally, Article 84 (8) requires that at least one-third of the members elected from each political party represented in the federal Parliament should be women.

This is reflected in the provincial election result of 2017 as well. 189 women were elected to provincial assemblies — 17 of those leaders through direct elections and 172 through the proportional representation system. So while 34% of women won in the provincial elections, fulfilling the constitutional provision, only 5% of the candidates elected under the FPTP system were women.

Women MPs complain that the national and provincial halls of power have been such that leaders elected under the proportional system are seen by their directly-elected colleagues in parliament as less qualified and less deserving to be there. This has created a chasm between lawmakers elected under different systems.

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This discrimination directly affects women, who are mostly elected through the PR system, as planning and budget distribution are directed towards constituencies that have powerful, directly elected leaders.

“We sit alongside each other, and we have been elected to do the same job, but we have been given second-class status because we were not elected directly like they were,” says Chanda Chaudhary, a Loktantrik Samajwadi Party MP. 

Political parties also sideline women leaders for their perceived inability to ensure campaign financing. Politics of patronage means that powerful businessmen and contractors donate to the campaigns of leaders. Election Observation Committee reports have shown that campaigning expenses were vastly underreported in 2017.

“It is taken for granted that men will be able to run while we are asked about our ability to raise money,” says National Assembly member Jayanti Devi Rai of the CPN Unified Socialists. “The electoral system is flawed and costly. We need to look at financing protocols such that candidates can stand regardless of their financial status.”

All these hurdles have forced Nepal’s female leaders to re-evaluate the way they present themselves, and what kind of message they put across.

“Nepal’s centres of power are patriarchal, so that women are forced to act like men to be noticed and to rise up the ranks,” says Maoist Centre MP Anjana Bishankhe. “Why can’t I contest elections on women’s agenda and women’s issues as my foremost priority?”

Nepal’s female elected officials gathered last week to demand 50% election participation, up from the current requirement of 33%.

“There is no shortage of smart, capable female leaders ready to directly compete in elections,” says Joint General Secretary of the NC Mahalaxmi Upadhyay. “All the women considering election runs can and should demand constituencies within their parties to contest the upcoming elections.”  

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