The Rastriya Swatantra Party ( ne, राष्ट्रिय स्वतन्त्र पार्टी; RSP) (; NIP) is a political party in Nepal. It currently remains as a junior ally in Prachanda-led government as of 26 December 2022. The party was announced in June 2022 by

Rabi Lamichhane Rabi Lamichhane ( ne, रवि लामिछाने; born 11 June 1975) is a Nepalese politician and chairman of the Rastriya Swatantra Party. He is currently serving as the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Home Affairs, in office since ...

. The party was registered with the Election Commission of Nepal on July 1, 2022, ahead of the

2022 Nepalese general election General elections are expected to be held in Nepal in November 2022 unless the House of Representatives is dissolved earlier. The discussion is underway due to interest of leading Nepali Congress while the opposition, CPN (UML), is already de ...

. The RSP is currently the fourth-largest national party in Nepal following the

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretariat; The global monkeypo ...

results. The party's election symbol is a

bell A bell is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be made by an inte ...

inside a circle.

History

resigned as managing director of Galaxy 4K on 16 June 2022 and announced that he would be contesting in the 2022 general elections for a seat at the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

. On 21 June 2022, he announced the formation of Rastriya Swatantra Party along with a 21-member central committee. The party was formally registered in the

Election Commission An election commission is a body charged with overseeing the implementation of electioneering process of any country. The formal names of election commissions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and may be styled an electoral commission, a c ...

on 1 July 2022 with Rabi Lamichhane as the founding president and a bell inside a circle as its election symbol. The party fielded

FPTP In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

candidates in 131 constituencies and submitted a closed list of prospective 107 PR lawmakers for seats to the House of Representatives at the 2022 general elections. The party did not field any candidates for provincial assemblies. The party selected candidates through

primary election Primary elections, or direct primary are a voting process by which voters can indicate their preference for their party's candidate, or a candidate in general, in an upcoming general election, local election, or by-election. Depending on the ...

s. The party emerged as the fourth-largest party in the

. The party won in seven

constituencies An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other polity ...

; four in

Kathmandu , pushpin_map = Nepal Bagmati Province#Nepal#Asia , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = Bagmati Prov ...

, one in Lalitpur and two in

Chitwan Chitwan District (, , ) is one of 77 districts of Nepal, and takes up the southwestern corner of Bagmati Province. Bharatpur, largest city of Nepal after Kathmandu, is its administrative centre. It covers . In 2011 it had a population of 579 ...

. It got 10.70% of the

party list An electoral list is a grouping of candidates for election, usually found in proportional or mixed electoral systems, but also in some plurality electoral systems. An electoral list can be registered by a political party (a party list) or can ...

vote and became one of the seven national parties in the

Federal Parliament The Parliament of Australia (officially the Federal Parliament, also called the Commonwealth Parliament) is the legislative branch of the government of Australia. It consists of three elements: the monarch (represented by the governor-gen ...

. The party won an additional 13 seats through the

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

system, bringing their total parliamentary strength in the House of Representatives to 20.

Organization

The party has announced that it will not have any sister organizations and only have members and no cadres. It has also announced that

s would be held to select candidates for elections from the party.

Ideology

The party supports constitutional socialism,

participatory democracy Participatory democracy, participant democracy or participative democracy is a form of government in which citizens participate individually and directly in political decisions and policies that affect their lives, rather than through elected repr ...

progressivism Progressivism holds that it is possible to improve human societies through political action. As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, tech ...

and

political freedom Political freedom (also known as political autonomy or political agency) is a central concept in history and political thought and one of the most important features of democratic societies.Hannah Arendt, "What is Freedom?", ''Between Past and F ...

. The party has been described as

centre-left Centre-left politics lean to the left on the left–right political spectrum but are closer to the centre than other left-wing politics. Those on the centre-left believe in working within the established systems to improve social justice. The ...

centrist Centrism is a political outlook or position involving acceptance or support of a balance of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy while opposing political changes that would result in a significant shift of society strongly to the ...

and

centre-right Centre-right politics lean to the right of the political spectrum, but are closer to the centre. From the 1780s to the 1880s, there was a shift in the Western world of social class structure and the economy, moving away from the nobility and ...

by different members within the party.

Policy platform

Electoral reform

It also supports the introduction of

recall election A recall election (also called a recall referendum, recall petition or representative recall) is a procedure by which, in certain polities, voters can remove an elected official from office through a referendum before that official's term of of ...

s, the right to reject and a provision for

absentee ballot An absentee ballot is a vote cast by someone who is unable or unwilling to attend the official polling station to which the voter is normally allocated. Methods include voting at a different location, postal voting, proxy voting and online vo ...

s. The party also supports a directly elected

prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

and directly elected chief ministers for the seven provinces of Nepal. The party in its manifesto for the 2022 elections also supported the idea of a

non-partisan Nonpartisanism is a lack of affiliation with, and a lack of bias towards, a political party. While an Oxford English Dictionary definition of ''partisan'' includes adherents of a party, cause, person, etc., in most cases, nonpartisan refers s ...

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

elected by an expanded electoral college which would incorporate elected representatives from ward chairs to federal lawmakers and also touted the idea of the chairman of the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the r ...

acting as the de facto vice-president. The party also seeks to end political appointments in constitutional bodies and has called for the Constitutional Council to be scrapped and for appointments to constitutional bodies be recommended by the National Assembly and confirmed by the House of Representatives instead. The party has also called for the dissolution of provincial assemblies and district co-ordination committees and has stood in favour of a provincial council which would be elected by the heads of local governments in the province and the party chair Rabi Lamichhane did not cast his vote at the 2022 provincial elections.

Economic and social welfare

The party sees the

private sector The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government. Employment The ...

co-operatives A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...

and the

public sector The public sector, also called the state sector, is the part of the economy composed of both public services and public enterprises. Public sectors include the public goods and governmental services such as the military, law enforcement, inf ...

as the three pillars of the economy. The party favors

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, ind ...

and seeks to establish a growing role of the private sector as an alternative to the public sector in order to deliver services to the people and for economic growth. The party wants to end income tax for people in the lowest octile of earners in the country. The party also seeks to establish food banks in every ward in the country and to guarantee nutrition assistance for people living under the poverty line by issuing them

ration cards A ration stamp, ration coupon or ration card is a stamp or card issued by a government to allow the holder to obtain food or other commodities that are in short supply during wartime or in other emergency situations when rationing is in for ...

. The party also seeks to expand the current

social welfare Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...

system and to include private

insurance companies Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

in the social welfare system.

Healthcare

The party supports the establishment of a single-payer healthcare system and the establishment of at least one laboratory and a 750-bed hospital in each of the seven provinces, a 50 to 100-bed hospital in each of the 77 districts, a 6 to 25-bed hospital in each local unit and a clinic in each ward in the country. The party also wants to establish a centralized national

ambulance service Emergency medical services (EMS), also known as ambulance services or paramedic services, are emergency services that provide urgent pre-hospital treatment and stabilisation for serious illness and injuries and transport to definitive care. ...

, health and quality assurance accreditation board, a food and drug department, a central disease board and a health innovation & development board. The party also wants to create a health workers act for public healthcare workers.

Corruption

The party seeks to crackdown on

corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...

by introducing a Whistleblower Protection Act to protect

whistleblowers A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...

and by establishing an Anti-Corruption Police under the

Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA; ne, अख्तियार दुरुपयोग अनुसन्धान आयोग) is an apex constitutional body for corruption control for the Government of Nepal. The C ...

Women and sexual minorities

The party has also called for the establishment of shelters for victims of abuse and the creation of a fund to help victims of

human trafficking Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extrac ...

domestic violence Domestic violence (also known as domestic abuse or family violence) is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. ''Domestic violence'' is often used as a synonym for ''intimate partner ...

and

acid attack An acid attack, also called acid throwing, vitriol attack, or vitriolage, is a form of violent assault involving the act of throwing acid or a similarly corrosive substance onto the body of another "with the intention to disfigure, maim, tortu ...

victims. The party also seeks to promote entrepreneurship among women and

sexual minorities A sexual minority is a group whose sexual identity, sexual orientation, orientation or practices differ from the majority of the surrounding society. Primarily used to refer to lesbian, gay, bisexual, or non-heterosexual individuals, it can als ...

by establishing funds for businesses where at least sixty percent of the shareholders or employees are female or of a sexual minority group.

Electoral performance

2022 general election

The party nominated 131 candidates for the

First Past the Post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

seats for the

List of Members of Parliament

The RSP secured a total of 20 seats, 7 FPTP and 13 PR seats, out of the

elections. Following is a list of parliamentarians for the Rastriya Swatantra Party who were elected from the 2022 general elections.

References

Political parties in Nepal 2022 establishments in Nepal Political parties established in 2022 Rastriya Swatantra Party {{DEFAULTSORT:Rastriya_Swatantra_Party