1959 Nepalese general election

1959 Nepalese general election
18 February–3 April 1959[1] 1971 →
All 109 seats in the House of Representatives
55 seats needed for a majority
Registered4,246,368[2]
Turnout1,791,381
  First party Second party
 
Leader B. P. Koirala Randhir Subba [ne]
Party Congress Gorkha Parishad
Leader's seat No. 32 (Won)[3] No. 26 (Lost)[4]
Seats won 74 19
Popular vote 666,898 305,118
Percentage 37.2% 17.1%
Prime Minister before election

Subarna Shamsher Rana
Congress

Prime Minister after election

B. P. Koirala
Congress

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General elections were held in Nepal from 18 February to 3 April 1959 to elect the 109 members of the first House of Representatives, the lower house of the Parliament of Nepal.[1][5] They were held under the provisions of the 1959 constitution, which had been adopted on 12 February.[6] More than 4.25 million people out of an overall population of about 8.55 million (1954) were eligible to vote.[7] Voter turnout was 42.18%.[8][2]

The result was a victory for the Nepali Congress, winning 74 of the 109 seats with 38% of the vote.[9] B. P. Koirala became the first democratically elected and 22nd Prime Minister of Nepal.[10]

  1. ^ a b Joshi, Bhuwan Lal; Rose, Leo E. (1966). Democratic Innovations in Nepal: A Case Study of Political Acculturation. University of California Press. p. 295.
  2. ^ a b Devkota, Grishma Bahadur (1976). Nepalko Rajnitik Darpan II (in Nepali). Bhattarai Bandhu Prakashan. p. 111.
  3. ^ "केवल एक पार्टी प्रमुखले जितेका थिए पहिलो आमनिर्वाचन" [Only one party leader won the first general election]. देशसञ्चार (in Nepali). 2017-12-01. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  4. ^ Kafle, Chandra. "४५ दिन लगाएर गरिएको २०१५ सालको चुनाव" [The election of 2015 BS was conducted in 45 days]. Setopati (in Nepali). Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  5. ^ Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume I, p629 ISBN 0-19-924958-X
  6. ^ Nohlen et al., p624
  7. ^ Rama Devi Pant (1959-04-04). "First general election of Nepal 1959" (PDF). The economic weekly. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  8. ^ Parajulee, Ramjee P. (2000). The democratic transition in Nepal. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 46. ISBN 0-8476-9577-8. OCLC 41951317.
  9. ^ Nohlen et al., p654
  10. ^ "Timeline" (PDF). constitutionnet.org. Retrieved 2020-06-17.