Nepal’s Anti-Establishment Wave Sweeps ‘Balen’ Shah to Historic Victory, Nears Two-Thirds Majority

KATHMANDU, Nepal — Fireworks crackled above the eastern town of Damak as word spread that Balendra “Balen” Shah, a 35-year-old former battle rapper, had defeated one of Nepal’s most powerful politicians on his home turf.

By the time Nepal’s Election Commission finished counting votes from the March 5 general election, Shah had trounced former Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli in Jhapa-5 by nearly 50,000 ballots — the largest individual margin in the country’s parliamentary history — and his upstart Rastriya Swatantra Party had secured 182 of the 275 seats in the House of Representatives.

The result, confirmed by near-final figures released this week, gives the anti-establishment party a commanding majority just two seats short of the two-thirds needed to amend Nepal’s constitution. It is the first time since 1999 that a single party will be able to form a government without coalition partners, and it effectively ends three decades of dominance by the Nepali Congress and the main communist bloc.

“This mandate says clearly that this country belongs to its youth, not to a handful of families,” Shah told supporters in Jhapa after his victory, according to local television broadcasts.

He promised “clean governance and jobs at home so young people don’t have to migrate.”

Vote follows 2025 unrest and crackdown

The election was the first national vote since a youth-led uprising in September 2025 toppled Oli’s previous government and left deep scars on the political system.

In early September last year, the Oli administration imposed a sweeping ban on major social media platforms, citing concerns about hate speech and disinformation. The move came amid mounting anger over corruption and the conspicuous wealth of politicians’ children and relatives, derided on Nepali social media as “nepo kids.”

Within days, thousands of students and young professionals poured into the streets of Kathmandu and other cities in largely leaderless demonstrations coordinated through encrypted chats and short-video platforms. Security forces opened fire in several locations. Human rights organizations later documented dozens of deaths from gunshot wounds over two days, including minors, and accused authorities of using unlawful lethal force against largely peaceful crowds.

The outcry forced Oli to resign. Parliament was dissolved early and former Chief Justice Sushila Karki was appointed interim prime minister with a mandate to restore order and oversee new elections by March 2026.

Election day on March 5 was comparatively calm. The Election Commission deployed security forces under an integrated plan and reported only minor incidents across 10,000-plus polling stations. About 60% of the country’s nearly 19 million registered voters cast ballots — the lowest turnout since multiparty democracy was restored in 1991.

Even with the lower participation, the verdict was decisive.

A sweeping win reshapes Nepal’s political map

Preliminary counts on election night showed Rastriya Swatantra Party candidates leading in dozens of constituencies. As results from the first-past-the-post races and the proportional representation tally came in over the following days, it became clear that the party had engineered one of the most sweeping victories in modern Nepali history.

The party, founded in 2022 by former television host Rabi Lamichhane on a platform of anti-corruption and technocratic reform, had won just 20 seats in its first national outing four years earlier. This time, it captured 125 of the 165 directly elected constituencies and 57 of the 110 proportional seats, for roughly 47.8% of the national party-list vote.

By contrast, the Nepali Congress, the country’s oldest democratic party, was reduced to about 38 seats — its worst showing since the early 1990s. The Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), or CPN-UML, anchored for years by Oli, fell to 25 seats, its poorest result on record. Other leftist and regional forces that had once shaped coalitions were pushed into low double digits or shut out altogether at the national level.

“This is not just a change of government; it is a systemic realignment,” said constitutional lawyer Raju Prasad Chapagain in a commentary in the Kathmandu press. “The old Congress-versus-communist polarity has been replaced by a new axis between the established order and an anti-establishment force that is now itself the establishment.”

From mayor to prime ministerial frontrunner

Shah, who trained as a civil engineer and gained fame in Kathmandu’s underground rap scene, rode that anti-establishment mood to prominence. Running as an independent, he was elected mayor of Kathmandu in 2022 on a promise to clean up the capital’s governance, and quickly gained a reputation for confrontations with the federal bureaucracy and even foreign missions over issues such as illegal billboards and city planning.

He also took high-profile nationalist stands in disputes over maps issued by India and China, at one point canceling a planned visit to China over a new map that depicted contested territory. Those moves cemented his image among many younger voters as a politician willing to challenge powerful interests at home and abroad.

In late 2025, Shah resigned as mayor and formally joined Rastriya Swatantra Party, which named him its prime ministerial candidate. The party made the symbolic decision to field him against Oli in Jhapa-5, the former prime minister’s traditional stronghold in the southeastern plains near the Indian border.

The strategy paid off. According to official tallies, Shah received 68,348 votes to Oli’s 18,734, eclipsing even Oli’s previous record for the highest individual vote count in a parliamentary race. Oli publicly congratulated his rival and said he accepted the people’s verdict.

Platform: governance reforms, economy, and a currency-peg review

Rastriya Swatantra Party has released a detailed election platform that blends promises of “good governance” with market-oriented economic reforms. It calls for overhauling the cooperative and microfinance sectors, digitizing public services, easing regulations for investment and, notably, commissioning a formal review of Nepal’s long-standing currency peg to the Indian rupee.

On foreign policy, the party pledges a “balanced and dynamic diplomacy” and says Nepal should move from being a buffer between India and China to a “vibrant bridge” linking the two economies.

India and China both moved quickly to acknowledge the results. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Nepali voters for “vibrantly” exercising their democratic rights and later spoke by phone with Shah and Lamichhane, Indian officials said, expressing a desire to work with the new government for “mutual prosperity.” China’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement praising the “smooth completion” of the polls and voicing readiness to deepen cooperation with the incoming administration.

Diplomats and analysts in Kathmandu say regional capitals will watch closely how the new government handles large infrastructure projects, including those linked to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and how it approaches any discussion of the currency peg and trade arrangements with India.

Tests ahead: constitutional math and accountability demands

At home, Shah and his party face immediate tests.

With 182 seats, Rastriya Swatantra Party can comfortably pass ordinary laws and budgets and fill key state positions on its own. But constitutional amendments still require a two-thirds majority in the House, meaning the party will need at least one other major bloc to support any changes to Nepal’s 2015 constitution.

Some of the party’s stated priorities — particularly “streamlining” the country’s three-tier federal system of federal, provincial and local governments — are likely to encounter resistance from provincial leaders and minority groups who see federalism as a hard-won safeguard. While the party’s manifesto affirms Nepal’s republican and secular order, a segment of its support overlaps with recent pro-monarchy and Hindu nationalist mobilizations, prompting concern among secular and ethnic activists about potential backsliding.

Rights advocates are also pressing the new leadership to address the legacy of the 2025 crackdown.

Human Rights Watch and other organizations have called for independent investigations into the killings and alleged abuses by security forces and for accountability for those responsible. Families of victims, many of whom were teenagers and young adults, have organized vigils and public petitions demanding justice.

“These elections were made possible by the blood of young people in the streets,” said a Kathmandu-based activist who worked with families of those killed. “The new government has a responsibility not only to deliver development but to ensure that never happens again.”

The extent to which Shah will confront the security establishment, and pursue prosecutions or truth-seeking mechanisms, remains unclear. Party leaders have so far emphasized forward-looking reforms over retrospective accountability.

‘This time we stood in line and got a government’

For now, the mood among many younger Nepalis is one of cautious hope. In Damak, near the heart of Jhapa-5, first-time voter Prakash Adhikari said he had joined the protests after the social media ban and later campaigned for Rastriya Swatantra Party online.

“We stood on the streets and got bullets and tear gas,” he said. “This time we stood in line and got a government.”

Whether that government can meet expectations — and maintain the trust of the generation that brought it to power — will shape Nepal’s politics, and its relationships with its powerful neighbors, for years to come.