2 Parliamentary rule, 1959-60

The Constitution of 1959 introduced a directly elected parliament and a cabinet responsible to it. The Nepali Congress won a clear majority; the opposition was small. In December 1960 King Mahendra dismissed the cabinet, dissolved parliament and detained its leaders, and in 1962 promulgated a new constitution built on the panchayat system. The episode sets the question the rest of the century answers differently: whether a majority government and a palace could coexist without a written allocation of ultimate authority.