Kathmandu – Nepal’s centrist party of rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah looked set to win by a landslide in parliamentary polls, according to Election Commission trends Saturday, but with counting still far to go.
The high-stakes parliamentary election on Thursday came six months after deadly anti-corruption protests toppled the government, with at least 77 people killed.
The September 2025 youth-led demonstrations, under a loose Gen Z banner, began over a brief social media ban but quickly tapped into broader grievances over corruption and a struggling economy.
According to early trends issued by the Election Commission Saturday, 35-year-old Shah’s Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) was on track to win a majority in the 275-member House of Representatives, the lower house of parliament.
“Looking at the trend, the Rastriya Swatantra Party has taken the lead in many places and has won several seats,” commission spokesperson Narayan Prasad Bhattarai told AFP.
If the trends are confirmed by the vote count, 35-year-old Shah’s victory over a veteran Marxist leader – and his rise from city mayor to potential prime minister – would mark one of the most dramatic results in recent Nepali politics.
“This is heading to a landslide victory — this reflects the frustration that has been building up,” said Chandra Dev Bhatta, a political analyst.
“It is actually the people’s revolt against the established political parties,” he added.
“The people understand that the new do not really have strong agendas, but it is a punishment to the parties for their decades-long poor governance.”
By Saturday morning, on the second day of counting, there were only 34 declared results – RSP took 27, Nepali Congress won four, and the Marxist party of ousted prime minister KP Sharma Oli was trailing with one.
Former Maoist guerrilla commander Pushpa Kamal Dahal has one seat for his party.
But trends showed that Shah’s RSP was also leading in 90 of the 165 constituencies in the direct elections.
It had secured comfortably more than half of votes so far counted in the proportional representation vote, which determines a further 110 seats via party lists.
Bhattarai said results from direct elections would be ready by Monday, but longer for full results to be ready.
“According to our plan, it will take at least a week to count the proportional votes, after which the election will go through the official process,” he added.
He said that vote counting was “going smoothly” across the Himalayan nation, from snowbound high-altitude mountain regions to the hot plains bordering India.
