TITLE:
Nepalese Crisis and Possible Interventions in the Context of Its Electoral Delimitation and Governing Structure
AUTHORS:
Deepak Thapa
KEYWORDS:
Governing-Structure, Electoral-Delimitation & Election-System, Fair Electoral Delimitation Theory, Gerrymandering, Electoral Theory of Consensus & Majoritarianism, Growth-Maximizing Economic Theories, Good Governance
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.14 No.3,
March
26,
2026
ABSTRACT: Almost all of the political and economic indicators of Nepal have been moving very negatively through a sensitively difficult situation, basically because of its electoral delimitation, huge mixed electoral system, and consequently overburdened governing structure, fueled by a lack of good governance. Political instability, bad governance, corruption, public distrust of political leaders, recent People’s Movements—especially the Gen Z movement of 08 September 2025 and People’s Movement of 28 March 2025—toppling of government and formation of a neutral interim government, and announcement of elections without addressing national issues, etc., are certainly not indicators of a brighter political aspect. More than that, the economic indicators have not been signaling any bit of optimism but rather a counterproductive status. The tax load, reaching 19.30% of the country’s GDP in spite of having only 1.89% (6.2% of its total budget) of its GDP as a social security budget, is almost equivalent to the trajectory of 7% of its GDP (Nominal) as the counterproductive tax overload as per Scully and Panthee’s parameters of growth-maximizing optimum tax rate (12.3%) in the year 2024/25, which will surely cross the critical tax overload of 8.2% of the projected GDP (NRs. 6.41 trillion) at the end of this fiscal year 2025/26. The yearly average individual tax load has been 123.5 (NRs. 39807) times higher in the year 2024/25 in comparison to the years 1999/2000 (NRs. 322), whereas the Nepalese yearly average individual tax load is almost 46% (NRs. 39807) higher than the Indian average individual tax load (NRs. 27332) in the same year 2024/25, despite Nepal’s trade-based small economy compared to India’s production-based big economy. The figure of 5.5% - 14% of its GDP has been registered as counterproductive yearly public expenditure each year from 2018 to 2025, as per Rahn’s parameter of growth-maximizing public expenditure (25% of GDP). Approximately 25% of its GDP has been filed as a yearly trade deficit each year. The national debt has been skyrocketing and has already reached the exact figure of 43% (NRs. 2622 billion) of its GDP in the year 2024/25, which means a similar ratio of 7.56% of its GDP’s figure enlisted as counterproductive debt as per the parameters of ideal growth-maximizing national debt (35.44%) of Prasai, and will cross the 15% threat line with the national debt status of 50.23% (NRs. 3217 billion) at the end of this year 2025/26. The average debt burden for each Nepalese individual has reached NRs. 88527 in the year 2024/25 and, if everything remains the same, it will approach NRs. 104251 at the end of this year 2025/26. Thus, the accumulation of all of these economic & political indicators has been indicating a state of crisis. If no intervention is taken in time, it is going to be at the level of a severe crisis. As the fundamental factors for this crisis, such as the “mixed electoral system” and “electoral delimitation,” are directly associated with the “governing structure” and the other remaining factor, such as “lack of good governance,” is—to a significant extent—the byproduct of political instability sourced by this huge “mixed electoral system,” this research has fundamentally focused on the overburdening governing structure of Nepal and mainly offered the varieties of electoral and structural reformative interventions, and then good governance and other specialized interventional initiatives. And now, it is up to the government to decide which specific interventional option to pursue based on their priorities.