KATHMANDU, March 6 — Counting was underway in Nepal on Friday, after a high-stakes parliamentary election to reshape the country’s leadership following 2025 protests that toppled the government.
Key figures vying for power include Marxist leader KP Sharma Oli, the ousted four-time prime minister, rapper-turned-mayor Balendra Shah, bidding for the youth vote, and the newly elected leader of the Nepali Congress party, Gagan Thapa.
In Kathmandu’s tea shops and city squares, people were glued to their phones, checking results as early trends flashed up — suggesting Shah’s centrist Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) was ahead.
Prakash Nyupane, a spokesman for the Election Commission, said that counting was ongoing “in a peaceful manner” across the Himalayan nation, from snowbound high-altitude mountain regions to the hot plains bordering India.
Voters have chosen who replaces the interim government in place since the September 2025 uprising, in which at least 77 people were killed, and parliament and scores of government buildings were torched.
Youth-led protests under a loose Gen Z banner began as a demonstration against a brief social media ban, but were fed by wider grievances at corruption and a woeful economy.
“This is even a bigger upset than we expected — it underscores the level of public disenchantment with the old parties for under-performance, as well as anger over the events of September,” Kunda Dixit, publisher of the weekly Nepali Times, told AFP.
‘Fate of the country’
The polls are one of the most hotly contested elections in the Himalayan republic of 30 million people since the end of a civil war in 2006.
All eyes are watching the results in the key head-to-head battleground constituency of Jhapa-5, a usually sleepy eastern district, where 35-year-old Shah challenged directly the veteran Oli, aged 74.
Shah, better known as Balen, snappily dressed in a black suit and sunglasses, has cast himself as a symbol of youth-driven political change — and early trends suggested he was in the lead.
Soldiers with armoured trucks manned barbed wire barricades around the counting centre in Jhapa.
“I hope this result changes the fate of the country for the better,” Bhagawati Adhikari, 38, told AFP, who was among a crowd of dozens at Jhapa gathered outside the security cordon.
“The country should be peaceful and secure, youth should get opportunities, corruption should stop — that’s my appeal.”
‘Better path’
More than 3,400 candidates ran for 165 seats in direct elections to the 275-member House of Representatives, the lower chamber of parliament, with 110 more chosen via party lists. Turnout was 59 percent.
Some results are expected later Friday, but full nationwide tallies could take several days.
Even then, negotiations to form a government may drag on if — as many analysts predict — no single party secures an outright majority.
But Dixit raised the possibility that Shah’s RSP could stage a dramatic win.
“If RSP hits the magic 138 seats, Balen will become prime minister — and hopefully a cabinet of technocrats,” added Dixit.
Sushila Karki, the interim prime minister, praised the peaceful conduct of a vote she has said was critical in “determining our future”.
The challenge that Karki — a 73-year-old former chief justice who reluctantly left retirement to lead the nation — now faces will be managing the reaction to results.
The election saw a wave of younger candidates promising to tackle Nepal’s dismal economy, challenging veteran politicians who have dominated for decades and argue that their experience guarantees stability and security.
Mira Ranjit, 49, who voted in the capital, Kathmandu, clapped as ballot boxes were collected under heavy guard and taken to counting centres late on Thursday.
“A new leader should emerge who can guide our country and show a better path for the nation, so that the Gen Z protest achieves its goal,” she said.
“We don’t need anything more than this. Many mothers lost their children, and their demands should be fulfilled.” — AFP
