Nepal today is officially a Federal Democratic Republic (since 2008, when the monarchy was abolished). It has a multiparty democracy, free elections, and a constitution that protects individual rights.

🔹 What often causes confusion is that the biggest parties in Nepal call themselves communist (for example, CPN-UML, CPN-Maoist Centre). They follow Marxist–Leninist or Maoist ideologies in name, but in practice they compete in elections like any other democratic party and form coalition governments.

🔹 When the CPN-UML and CPN-Maoist Centre merged in 2018, they briefly ruled as the Nepal Communist Party (NCP), but it was later dissolved by the Supreme Court.