Nepal's political life - parliamentary monarchy - is governed by a constitution promulgated in 1962 and then revised in 1990. To date, the system called Panchayat democracy, founded on consensus investigation and banning political parties, has prevailed. Since 1990, multipartism is in force. Two parties dominate Nepalese political life: the Communist Party of Nepal and the Nepalese Congress Party.
Nepal is strongly aware of a government instability and, from 1996, the country is confronted with the war made by Maoïst rebelles, which demand the establishment of a popular republic. The massacre of almost all of the royal family June 1, 2001 deeply destabilizes the Nepalese kingdom as guérilla Maoïste intensifies and that the new king Gyanendra, suspected of wanting to re-establish a system of absolute monarchy, is very unpopular. After the dissolution of the Parliament in 2002, the king is granted full powers in February 2005, invoking the inability of the political parties to unite against guérilla maoïste. But under the very wide pressure of a movement of anti-monarchic popular demonstrations unleashed in April 2006, Parliament is forced to reinstate and appoint a Prime Minister.