Ex-rapper-led upstart party surges toward Nepal election landslide win

Summary

Rastriya Swatantra (National Independent Party) led early vote tallies in Nepal’s parliamentary election in results published Sunday by the Election Commission, putting the newly formed party on track for a major upset. The party’s momentum comes in a political environment still shaped by last year’s youth-led protests, which helped drive the ouster of former Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli and destabilized the long-dominant parties that had traded control in Kathmandu for decades.

Election officials said results for the first parliamentary election since those protests showed the Rastriya Swatantra had already secured 117 of 165 directly elected seats, while also leading in eight other constituencies. Officials were still counting votes and said final results were expected later in the week, with other parties and independents taking 36 seats in total so far.

The election is designed to produce a 275-member House of Representatives. Voters cast two ballot papers—one to pick a candidate for the directly elected seats, and another to choose a preferred party for proportional representation—under which 110 seats are allocated based on each party’s share of the vote.

In Sunday’s count, Rastriya Swatantra also led the proportional representation portion, with about 51% of the 110 seats indicated. Analysts described what that could mean for government formation: the party would need support of half of the total number of members in the lower chamber to form a government, and the early numbers suggested it could reach the necessary scale.

The party is headed by Balendra Shah, an ex-rapper who is also the party’s prime ministerial candidate. Shah won the 2022 Kathmandu mayoral race, and AP reported that he emerged as a leading figure in the 2025 uprising that ousted Oli.

Rastriya Swatantra, formed about four years ago, has unseated the two parties that have long dominated Nepali politics: the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist). AP said local newspapers called the result a sweeping victory, framing it as a “historic moment,” with some outlets describing it as a shift in Nepal’s political paradigm.

At the party’s headquarters in Kathmandu, supporters celebrated the early results in several constituencies by offering winners flower garlands, bouquets, scarves and smearing them with red vermilion powder, AP reported. However, party officials also asked candidates and supporters to refrain from victory rallies or other public celebrations out of respect for dozens of lives lost during the prior year’s youth-led protests.

One party member and volunteer, Khagendra Chapagain, described the party’s agenda in terms of development and anti-corruption. “The future prime minister (Shah) has clearly spoken that there will be no compromise when it comes to developing the country,” Chapagain said, adding that the party’s first agenda would be to develop the nation and focus on health, education and “the fight against corruption.”

Still, an outside perspective suggested the election outcome would not remove immediate practical obstacles for a new political force. Keshab Prasad Poudel, an independent analyst, said the “problem or challenge” for the new party would be delivering concrete results given what he described as limited resources and limited institutional support, while noting that public expectations could be high.

AP also reported that the protests last year were triggered by a social media ban before expanding into anger over corruption and poor governance. It said dozens were killed and hundreds wounded when protesters attacked government buildings and police opened fire.