Kathmandu
\nNepal\u2019s centrist RSP party of rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah had secured a majority in the direct parliamentary elections, partial official results showed Sunday, and was heading for a landslide according to official trends.
\nThe 35-year-old\u2019s Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) was also leading in the proportional representation vote, according to results declared and election commission trends.
\nThe vote was the first since the deadly September 2025 youth anti-corruption protests toppled the government.
\nShah himself had on Saturday defeated the veteran four-time prime minister KP Sharma Oli \u2014 whose Marxist-led government was ousted in the violence last year \u2014 in his own seat.
\nHis victory over the 74-year-old Oli, and his rise from the capital\u2019s mayor to potential prime minister, marks one of the most dramatic results in recent Nepali politics.
\nThe 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.
\nElections on Thursday chose a new 275-member House of Representatives, the lower house of parliament, with 185 seats chosen directly, and 110 by a proportional representation vote.
\nPoll monitors, The Asian Network for Free Elections, said Sunday that voting had been \u201cpeaceful and orderly and reflected continued public engagement with democratic processes despite recent political instability\u201d.
\n\u2018Necessary action\u2019
\nOn Sunday afternoon, 153 of the direct elections had been declared: RSP dominating with 117, Nepali Congress 17, and the Marxists of now-defeated Oli trailing with seven.
\nFormer Maoist guerrilla commander Pushpa Kamal Dahal, a three-time prime minister, won his seat, with his party holding seven in total.
\nTrends showed Shah\u2019s RSP was also leading in eight of the remaining 12 constituencies in the direct elections.
\nIn the proportional representation vote, RSP was leading with nearly half of the counted votes \u2014 but final results could take several more days.
\nNepali Congress, the largest party in the past coalition government, also saw its new leader, Gagan Thapa, defeated by RSP.
\n\u201cCounting is moving forward smoothly in all remaining constituencies,\u201d Election Commission spokesman Narayan Prasad Bhattarai told AFP.
\n\u201cResults of all direct votes are expected by the end of today, the PR (proportional representation) votes will take a few days more.\u201d
\nThe first-time parliamentary lawmaker Shah toured the streets of his new constituency on Saturday evening, wearing his signature dark sunglasses and waving from the sunroof of a car in a victory parade through cheering crowds who chanted \u201cBalen\u201d \u2014as he is better known.
\nShah, who did not make a speech, won more than three times more votes than Oli, who congratulated the winner, wishing him \u201ca smooth and successful five-year tenure\u201d.
\nNepal\u2019s government-formed investigation commission to probe the deadly September 2025 violence also submitted its report Sunday.
\nNo one has been held accountable for the deaths as yet.
\nIts findings have not yet been made public, but it was handed to Sushila Karki, the interim prime minister,
\nCommission member Bigyan Raj Sharma told reporters the team had questioned more than 200 people, and had submitted a 900-page report \u2014 with more than 8,000 additional pages.
\n\u201cWe tried to conduct fact-finding for September 8 and 9,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cBased on what we saw, understood, and verified through the evidence, we have provided our opinions and recommendations. This is now the government\u2019s property, and the government will take the necessary action.\u201d
\nOli has denied ordering security forces to open fire on protesters, and has told AFP that he blames \u201cinfiltrators\u201d for the violence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kathmandu Nepal\u2019s centrist RSP party of rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah had secured a majority in the direct parliamentary elections, partial official results showed Sunday, and was heading for a landslide according to official trends. The 35-year-old\u2019s Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) was also leading in the proportional representation vote, according to results declared and election commission trends. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":94771,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94790"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94812,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94790\/revisions\/94812"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}