The Constitution of Nepal (2015) enshrined the rights of women to political participation through the introduction of gender quotas, ensuring 33% of all parliamentary seats and 40% of local election seats are reserved for women. According to FEDO, after the election in 2017, women constituted 40.9% of local government representatives, 16% of ministers and 29.5% of seats in the national parliament.
While women’s representation increased in the 2017 election, women were elected to only 2% of the 756 mayor/chair positions and 1% of the 6,742 ward chair seats (Paswan, 2017). In Province 7, only two of 54 mayor/chair positions were held by women (Nepal in Data). The lack of women in key decision-making positions in Province 7 posed considerable challenges for elected women to meaningfully engage and is indicative of the degree to which political parties, the public, and women themselves, support female leadership.
