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Structuring Government Timeline and Prime Ministerial History

· 2 min read
samundrak
JavaScript Dev

Overview​

Nepal’s modern political history has seen rapid changes in governments, coalitions, and Prime Ministers. I created a structured timeline that chronicles each government—with clarity on its head, party breakdown, duration, and legacy.

This article outlines the structure and visualization of the government timeline system.

Government Model​

Each government entry includes:

{
  id: 54,
  name: 'KP Oli Second Cabinet',
  headId: 1429, // PM leader
  startedAt: '2018-02-15',
  endAt: '2021-07-12',
  parliamentId: 4,
  government_type: 'MAJORITY'
}

This links to a head (PM), a parliament, and optionally a municipality or state.

Cabinet Breakdown​

Using cabinet_members and partyId, I calculated:

  • Number of ministers per party
  • Dominant party
  • Coalitions (2+ parties)

This supports rendering coalition pies, alliance tags, and seat bars.

Timeline View​

Governments are plotted chronologically with consistent formatting:

  • PM photo and party
  • Duration (days, term length)
  • Parliament association
  • Transition link (next/previous)

Coalition Detection​

Coalition logic:

const distinctParties = new Set(cabinetMembers.map(c => c.partyId));
const isCoalition = distinctParties.size > 1;

Displayed as:

Coalition: UML + Maoist Centre + Others

Prime Minister Listing​

From the government data, I extracted:

  • PMs by frequency (e.g., Deuba 5 times)
  • Term durations
  • Firsts (e.g., first female PM if any)
  • Head overlap with parliaments

Summary​

The government timeline view allows users to:

  • Trace power shifts over decades
  • Understand coalition dynamics
  • Study PM performance and tenures

In the next post, I’ll detail how I modeled cabinet members and ministry roles with dynamic party/leader associations.