Kathmandu, March 8: The RSP led by young rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah ‘Balen’ has already secured a spectacular victory with over two-thirds seats in general elections that saw the legacy parties face rout at the hustings in Nepal.
Formed in 2022, the Rashtriya Swatantra Party (RSP) won 122 of the 165 directly elected seats in the House of Representative elections, according to the Election Commission (EC).
The EC has announced results for 159 of the 165 seats as of 8:30 pm Sunday.
Results for six seats remain to be declared, the EC said, adding, the counting that had started on Thursday soon after voting ended will conclude by Monday afternoon for direct seats.
On Saturday, RSP’s 35-year-old prime-ministerial candidate Balen defeated four-time prime minister KP Sharma Oli, the chair of Nepal’s one of the largest parties — CPN-UML — by a huge margin of about 50,000 votes in the Jhapa-5 constituency.
Balen is expected to be the next prime minister of Nepal, reflecting a public mood of rejection of established parties. He will be the first Madhesi prime minister of the Himalayan nation and also the youngest to occupy the top post in the country’s parliamentary history.
The Nepali Congress (NC) is a distant second, winning 17 seats while the CPN-(UML) of ousted prime minister Oli won just eight seats and is leading in two constituencies.
The Nepal Communist Party (NCP) won seven seats, the Shram Sanskriti Party won three while the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) won one seat, the EC data showed. Among the winners is one independent.
However, two other former prime ministers lost from their respective strongholds amid the RSP tsunami that decimated the old guard in the Himalayan nation.
Gen Z, through its two-day intensified protests on September 8 and 9 last year, ousted Oli, who was heading a coalition government with the backing of the Nepali Congress.
Soon after when the elections were announced, the major issues raised by Gen Z before and during the campaign became anti-corruption, good governance, an end to nepotism, generational change in political leadership, etc.
The election was being closely watched by India, which is hoping for a stable government in the politically-fragile Himalayan country to take forward the developmental partnership between the two sides. (PTI)
