Former rapper’s political party leads early results in Nepal’s first election since 2025 youth uprising

Kathmandu, Nepal — Preliminary and partial results released on Saturday showed a new political party led by a former rapper in Nepal’s parliamentary elections, the country’s first since last year’s youth-led coup.

The Rashtriya Swatantra or Rashtriya Swatantra Party has already won 27 out of 165 directly elected seats and is leading in 90 other constituencies in the results announced by the Election Commission of Nepal.

Its prime ministerial candidate is rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah, who won the 2022 Kathmandu mayoral race and has emerged as a key figure in the 2025 coup that ousted former prime minister Khadga Prasad Oli.

The 35-year-old highlighted health and education for poor Nepalese as key focal points of his campaign, which raised a wave of public anger towards traditional political parties.

He is contesting directly against Oli in the South-East district, where he has a substantial lead over the former prime minister as counting continues.

The other six seats up for grabs are held by the Nepali Congress Party and two by the Communist Party.

Voters directly elect 165 members to the House of Representatives, the lower house of Parliament. The remaining 110 seats in the 275-member body will be allocated through the proportional representation system, under which political parties are allocated seats based on their vote share.

Counting of votes continued in most constituencies of the country on Saturday and the final result will be out in the next two days. Ballot boxes are being collected from remote mountain villages in the northern part of the country using helicopters.

The election is widely seen as a three-cornered contest, shaped by voter frustration with widespread corruption and demands for greater government accountability.

The Rashtriya Swatantra Party was only established in 2022, but gained massive support in this election, emerging as a front and posing a strong challenge to the two long-dominant parties: the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (unified Marxist-Leninist).

The 2025 protests against corruption and poor governance were sparked by a social media ban before snowballing into a popular uprising against the government. Dozens of people were killed and hundreds injured when protesters stormed government buildings and police opened fire on them.