Government of Nepal

Nepal is a parliamentary democracy in transition. Under the 1990 constitution, Nepal is a pluralist, parliamentary democracy headed by a constitutional monarch. It has a two-chamber legislature, comprising a house of representatives, with 205 members directly elected for five-year terms, and a national council with 60 members, comprising ten appointees of the king, 35 members elected by the lower house, and 15 selected from the country's five development zones. Until 2006, executive power was vested jointly in the king and a council of ministers, headed by a prime minister drawn from the House of Representatives' majority party grouping. However, in 2006, the king was forced to give up executive power and became a ceremonial head of state. The constitution explicitly guarantees freedom of expression, press, peaceful assembly, association, and movement. From one of a group of small principalities, the Gurkha people emerged to unite Nepal under King Prithivi Narayan Shah in 1768. In 1816, after the year-long Anglo-Nepali ‘Gurkha War’, a British resident (government representative) was stationed in Kathmandu and the kingdom became a British-dependent buffer state. The country was recognized as fully independent by Britain in 1923 although it remained bound by treaty obligations until 1947, the year of India's independence. Between 1846 and 1951 Nepal was ruled by a hereditary prime minister of the Rana family. The Ranas were overthrown in a revolution led by the Nepali congress, and the monarchy, in the person of King Tribhuvan, was restored to power.