A study on Lowering Factors of Women’s Representation to Decision Making Positions in local governance of Nepal

Abstract

Abstract

The decades-long Nepal’s women movement has achieved constitutional and legal rights ensuring representation of women in decision making levels. The Local Level Election Act, 2017, provisions to lodge 50 % candidacy of women by a political party among key posts either chief or deputy posts of local levels. But women representation remained deficit by 3.19% in 2017 and about 21.25 % in 2022. Male held both the key posts in 160 local levels according to result of local election 2022. This paper aims to analyse legal impact and hindering factors achieving the intended progress of gender equality. The study was based on literature review, secondary data analysis and media content analysis and the data were studied from the local election of 2017 and 2022. It was found that main factors were legal loopholes, political dynamics and political parties’ coalition while lodging candidacy in the election, patriarchal value based gender power structure, relation and exercise that effect supply and demand side both and the study  also revealed that the representation of women reduced in the vital positions of local level in 2022 compare to 2017.The findings would be useful to women movement in Nepal for the evidence based voicing, to law makers to address the legal loopholes and to the political parties to explore options for increasing opportunities to women leaders to reach to key posts in the elected bodies including local levels.

Key words: Intersectionality, key posts, local level election, women’s representation, decisive.