4.2 Proportional Representation (PR) System

The rule: the seats in proportion to the votes — the parties' lists (the closed list: the party's rank-order fixed, the voters choose the party — Nepal's Article 84 design; the open list: the voters pick the candidates too — the comparative options), with the allocation mathematics (the divisor formulas — the d'Hondt and Sainte-Lague families; Nepal's current statutes' allocation method is described by commentators as the Sainte-Lague divisor, with the threshold-and-quotient details per the Act) and the thresholds (the minimum-vote bar to any seats — the small-party filter). The virtues: the proportionality (the votes' honest translation); the inclusion's engine (the lists can be engineered for the women, Dalits, minorities — Nepal's Article 84(1)(b) inclusion groups: the closed list's mandated composition); the multi-party democracy's reflection; the wasted vote's near-death. The vices: the fragmentation (the Knesset-and-Italian instabilities' textbook); the party oligarchy (the list-makers' power — the rank's patronage; the Bal KrishnaNeupane order's own grievance: the PR law's capture-risk by the elites); the constituency link's loss (the voter's MP is a list, not a neighbour); the coalition's price (the perpetual bargaining); the complexity's voter cost. Nepal's PR: the 110 of 275 (40%) — the whole country as one constituency, the closed list with the inclusion groups' quotas and the ⅓ women's floor perparty (Article 84's own top-up rule); the NA's-and-local-tiers' PR faces…