Nepal polls: Gen Z wave sweeps old guard as Balen Shah heads for historic mandate

On Thursday, March 5, 2026, Nepal, a country of 29.63 million people, held a parliamentary election barely three years after the previous national vote. The election was necessitated by the unprecedented, short but disruptive and impactful political upheaval led by Gen Z, which culminated in the worst unrest in decades and resulted in the premature resignation of the Prime Minister, KP Sharma Oli, on September 9, 2025. The elections were held under the government headed by the interim Prime Minister, Sushila Karki, widely praised for her integrity, who had promised that national elections would be held within six months.

Eligible Voters

The voting age in Nepal is 18 years, and nearly 19 million people (9.66 million men, 9.24 million women, and 200 in other categories) were registered to vote in the election, according to the Election Commission. The number of registered voters in the current election was one million more than in the previous parliamentary election in November 2022, as the youth-led uprising sparked greater interest in politics.

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Seats on Offer

Voting was held for the 275 seats in the House of Representatives (Pratinidhi Sabha), the powerful lower chamber of the Nepalese Parliament established under the 2015 Constitution. One-third of the seats were reserved for women.

The 275 members of the House of Representatives were to be elected for a five-year term through a mixed electoral system in which 165 candidates were elected by the direct First-Past-the-Post system, while the remaining 110 were elected through proportional representation. Under the proportional representation system, political parties nominate lawmakers based on the share of votes each receives.

Parties in the Fray

A total of 67 parties were in the fray in the Nepal elections. Essentially, however, the election was a direct contest between the 'Old Guard' and the 'Young Turks'.

The Old Guard

At one end of the spectrum were the legacy parties dominated by:

Nepali Congress (NC) – led by Sher Bahadur Deuba and Gagan Thapa, the oldest party in Nepal

Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) – CPN-UML, led by KP Sharma Oli, who was ousted in the aftermath of the September 2025 Gen Z-led protest

Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) – led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal (“Prachanda”)

Ever since Nepal became a republic in 2008, one or another coalition comprising these parties has governed the country, producing 14 prime ministers, none of whom completed their full terms.

The Young Turk

At the other end of the spectrum was the newly formed reformist Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), with Rabi Lamichhane (party founder) and Balendra “Balen” Shah (Kathmandu mayor) as key leaders. The party surged after the Gen-Z protests against corruption and political elites, becoming a major challenger to traditional parties.

In between, apart from the above parties, many others participated in the elections, a few prominent among them being: Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), People’s Socialist Party (PSP-Nepal), Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP), Loktantrik Samajwadi Party (LSP), Janamat Party.

Candidates on the Ballot

Altogether, 6,541 candidates vied for election on the ballot, with the following composition:

Direct election: total number of candidates 3,406 (male 3,017, female 388, others 1)

Proportional election: total number of candidates 3,135 (male 1,363, female 1,772)

In the 275-member Pratinidhi Sabha, 60 per cent of the candidates were to be elected directly (Ballot I) and 40 per cent through the proportional system (Ballot II).

Key Issues 

The key issues in Nepal’s 2026 elections revolved around corruption, youth unemployment, governance failures, and economic stagnation, fuelled by the 2025 Gen Z protests. All parties, both traditional warhorses and the newly formed Rastriya Swatantra Party, promised reforms, job creation, and welfare. The key issues and promises of the parties are recapitulated below.

Major Issues

Party Promises

Sensing the mood of the restive youth, all key political parties put forward ambitious agendas and promises in the election.

First, Nepali Congress (Gagan Thapa):

The Nepali Congress outlined a 10-point agenda in its 2026 manifesto, emphasising governance reform, economic growth, and citizen dignity under the slogan “Transformed Congress, Transformed Nation”.

Key promises included governance reforms, anti-corruption measures, private sector-led economic growth, job creation, agricultural modernisation, universal healthcare, affordable education, unemployment insurance, maternity leave, and the elimination of discrimination.

Second, CPN-UML (KP Sharma Oli):

CPN-UML, under KP Sharma Oli, released its 2026 manifesto titled Desh Pahila (“Country First”), prioritising governance reforms, economic growth, and national sovereignty.

The party promised institutional rebuilding after the 2025 protests, double-digit economic growth, one million youth jobs, and expanded access to education, healthcare, housing, and social justice.

Third, the Nepali Communist Party (Prachanda):

The Nepali Communist Party (NCP), led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal “Prachanda”, outlined ambitious socialist-oriented promises centred on economic self-reliance, anti-corruption measures, and social justice.

These included safeguarding national sovereignty, expanding health insurance to the entire population, eliminating discrimination, boosting agriculture and industry, generating employment, and pursuing balanced diplomacy.

Fourth, the Rastriya Swatantra Party

The Rastriya Swatantra Party’s “Commitment Paper 2082” or “Citizen Contract” outlined 100 policy pillars focusing on governance reform, digital transformation, and youth-centred economic growth.

The programme included digitising public services, investigating illicit wealth accumulation since 1990, merit-based bureaucracy, economic modernisation, expansion of the IT sector, universal healthcare and education, and major infrastructure development.

As can be seen from the above, all four key political formations promised sweeping reforms and socio-economic transformation, including addressing the concerns of the restive youth in a country where the median age is just 25.

I will soon elaborate on which party’s electoral promises resonated with the electorate and why.

Before that, a peek at how the traditional legacy parties of Nepal fared in the election.

The Waterloo

The 2026 elections have proved to be a Waterloo for all the main parties and leaders of Nepal. KP Sharma Oli, the former prime minister and CPN-UML chairman, is the most prominent leader who lost his seat in Jhapa-5 to Balendra Shah (Balen) of the Rastriya Swatantra Party by over 10,000 votes.

The sole exception was former prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, widely known as Prachanda, who was elected to Nepal’s House of Representatives from Rukum East–1, defeating his closest rival, Lilamani Gautam of the CPN-UML, by a margin of 6,778 votes.

All three traditional ruling parties were decisively defeated at the hustings, with the Nepali Congress already publicly conceding defeat. Other traditional giants, including the two communist parties headed respectively by KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, performed even worse.

The following figures show how comprehensive the rout of the traditional Nepalese parties has been in the 2026 elections: Nepali Congress (17 including 11 leads), CPN-UML (11 including 9 leads), and Nepal Communist Party (9 including seven leads).

And the Winner Is

The party that has won a landslide victory in the direct elections is the Rastriya Swatantra Party, the clear favourite among the youth, a party that did not even exist three years ago.

The undisputed figure of the election is a 35-year-old political newcomer, a former rapper turned civil engineer, who entered politics only in May 2022 when he contested the local elections as an independent candidate and won the position of Mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City. He served from May 30, 2022, to January 18, 2026, before resigning, joining the Rastriya Swatantra Party, and emerging as a leading candidate for the prime minister’s post in the 2026 general election.

The Number Theory

In the direct election for 165 seats of the Pratinidhi Sabha, the Rastriya Swatantra Party has taken an unassailable lead and is heading towards a historic two-thirds majority, a feat no political party in Nepal has achieved in recent decades. In direct election seats the party is winning at 120 seats (41 wins and 79 leads), and according to the Election Commission, it has secured 32,091, or 57.2 per cent, of votes in the proportionate voting segment.

What a Contrast

Parliamentary elections in two neighbouring countries of India—Bangladesh and Nepal—were held within a month of each other. Elections in both countries were necessitated by youth-led agitation, and in both elections more than 60 per cent of voters cast their ballots.

But what a contrast in the results.

Dawn of a New Era

Although all political parties pledged to amplify the voices of younger voters, promising to tackle corruption and improve governance, it was the bold new agenda of the Balen Shah-led party that resonated most strongly with the electorate and may herald the dawn of a new era in the Himalayan republic.

Balen Shah appears to be achieving what no Nepali leader has in three decades—securing a two-thirds majority. But that was the easy part. The real challenge now lies in fulfilling the electoral promises and removing Nepal’s long-standing reputation as the “basket case” of South Asia.

(The author is a multi-disciplinary thought leader with Action Bias and an India-based impact consultant. He is President of Advisory Services at BARSYL. Views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s position.)