March to 5 March

Days after he was sworn in as Home Minister last week, Om Prakash Aryal in a meeting with the Election Commission said the interim government was determined to guarantee voting rights for expatriate Nepalis in elections on 5 March 2026.

Nepalis across the world welcomed the move they have been pushing for years. Most are young Nepalis between 18 and 35 who closely followed as their peers back home took to the streets to protest corruption and bad governance this month.

But despite Aryal’s directive to the Election Commission, experts say there are legal and technical obstacles to ensuring absentee ballots in the next six months. 

Targeted out-of-country voting is possible within the current timeframe, but not a full global rollout reaching the estimated 5 million Nepalis abroad would not be under established electoral practice.

In 2018 the Supreme Court ruled that overseas Nepalis had a constitutional right to vote. But successive governments failed to amend election laws, likely out of fear of anti-incumbent, anti-establishment sentiments in the diaspora which would affect their chances at the polls. 

Aryal said the interim government plans to set up polling booths to ensure the rights of overseas Nepali right to vote under the Proportional Representation (PR) system at least at its 40 diplomatic missions abroad. Of these 30 are embassies, seven consulates, and three permanent missions.

“That this government has recognised the need to guarantee voting rights to overseas Nepalis is a positive step, but a commitment of this scale with the limited time we have is too ambitious,” cautions Radhika Regmi Pokharel of The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). “For now, enabling officials within the diplomatic missions to vote may be a starting point.”

However, some experts say allowing only diplomats abroad to vote will be unjust and may create discontent at a time when the hopes of Nepali expatriates to vote have been raised.

Former Chief Election Commissioner Bhojraj Pokharel says it is up to the interim government to decide on the scale of the operation. He adds, “We have to consider whether we are aiming for a symbolic franchise with a limited number of overseas Nepalis voting to begin with, as true electoral justice that includes every Nepali living overseas will be a very difficult task to achieve in limited time.” 

The first step will be to clear the legal pathway to achieving out-of-country voting. In 2023, the Election Commission  registered the Bill to Amend and Consolidate the Election Law that proposed 27 amendments, including allowing absentee ballots. The Bill was stuck at the Home Ministry for two years. 

With Parliament now dissolved, the government must amend election-related laws through ordinance, not just to ensure voting rights to Nepalis overseas, but also within Nepal. 

The Voter Registration Act stipulates that voter registration must stop once the date of elections have been announced. Hundreds of thousands of young Nepalis have crossed 18 years, and become eligible to vote after the last polls in 2022. President Ram Chandra Paudel endorsed an ordinance on Wednesday to keep voter registration open for first-time voters. 

“The clock is ticking, each day without the relevant laws leaves us with less and less time to implement reforms,” says Radhika Regmi Pokharel of IFES. 

Nepalis cannot vote from their current place of residence, and internal migration and inability to leave work means many cannot travel to their constituencies on election day, which results in hundreds of thousands of Nepalis being disenfranchised. Only election officials and security personnel can cast at least their PR ballots from where they are stationed. 

“A top priority in this election must be to at least ensure internal migrants are able to cast their ballots for their constituencies from their place of residence,” says former Chief Election Commissioner Bhojraj Pokharel. “That way, we can ensure electoral justice at least for a maximum number of domestic voters to start with.” 

Nepalis abroad will also need to be registered to vote, which experts agree is the greatest constraint. The census put the country’s absentee population at 2.1 million, but the actual figure is closer to 5 million Nepalis working, studying and living abroad. 

Showing up to cast ballots at diplomatic missions will also be difficult as Nepali students, migrant workers, and people holding long-term residency permits live a significant distance away from Nepali diplomatic missions, or they may not be in a country with an embassy.

There is also the question of how to get the ballots back to Nepal on time, and officials might have to be assigned to count the votes within diplomatic missions. There are election observers representing parties contesting elections at counting centres in Nepal, but can this be replicated abroad?  

Even if technical and legal hurdles are overcome, there are diplomatic and security challenges. Voting booths will be needed at sites beyond diplomatic missions, or in nations that do not have embassies where there are no bilateral agreements to designated polling stations. 

Voting at diplomatic missions is generally accepted, but many host states, especially in the Gulf, require prior consent for large-scale polling, making early dialogue with these governments crucial.

Moreover, a significant number of Nepalis, especially Nepali migrant workers, live in countries that are not democratic which reduces the chances of bilateral agreements being signed in time. 

Antonio Spinelli, Senior Adviser for Electoral Processes for the Stockholm-based International IDEA, says it is ultimately for Nepal’s government to decide what is feasible and how to proceed.

“A too ambitious attempt to introduce multiple out-of-country voting methods or a universal system in such a compressed period would carry significant risks,” Spinelli wrote in an email to Nepali Times, “administrative failure, host-country resistance, and potential reputational damage could set the cause of migrant enfranchisement back rather than advance it.”

A pilot voting scheme could be realistically introduced for in-person voting for the PR ballot at selected embassies and consulates. Conducting trial out-of-country voting in a country with a relatively low expatriate population would be feasible, and if successful could inspire hope and boost morale among other overseas voters. 

“While the number of overseas voters enfranchised in 2026 will likely be limited, the introduction of a pilot would nonetheless send a clear signal that democracy in Nepal is moving towards becoming more inclusive, representative and accountable,” Spinelli says.

Aside from voting, a major challenge for the interim government is to create a political environment to bring the discredited political parties into the election fold, especially as they are set to become increasingly adversarial.

Nepal's security agencies have also lost much public trust, suffer from low morale, and need to be incentivised and revamped to ensure a smooth election process.

Poll monitors, both national and international, need to be approached at least four months ahead of election to manage resources and set up observation teams.

Nepal’s youth must be encouraged not just to register and vote, but also contest in elections. If polling and politics are once again dominated by the same players that have refused to loosen their hold on power, even within their own parties, the youth movement that toppled a corrupt and incompetent leadership will have been for nothing, experts say.  

The Election Commission is capable of conducting elections within 100 days once it has a voter list. This leaves the government with two months to address technical, political and logistic challenges and introduce electoral reforms. 

Concludes Bhojraj Pokharel: “The main priority of this government must be to enable an environment for the Election Commission to conduct elections through laws, logistics, and dialogue. Nepal has a limited window of opportunity, but provided we clear these pathways, we will be able conduct a free, fair and timely election.”