Kathmandu, March 7 — The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), associated with former Kathmandu mayor and rapper Balendra Shah (Balen), is dominating early counts in Thursday’s parliamentary elections and appears headed for a landslide. By Saturday morning the party led in 98 First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) constituencies, with 19 victories officially declared.
The Election Commission said counting was underway in 135 of the 165 FPTP seats. Of the 27 constituencies where counting has finished, RSP candidates won 19. Counting had not started in three constituencies for various reasons.
At 8:00 AM NST, RSP had 19 confirmed wins and led in 98 FPTP races. The Nepali Congress trailed with four wins and leads in 11 seats. The CPN-UML (led by KP Sharma Oli) had one declared victory and led in 11 constituencies, while the Nepali Communist Party (NCP) also recorded one win and led in 11 seats.
In Jhapa-5, Balendra Shah maintained a wide advantage over KP Sharma Oli, with 34,863 votes to Oli’s 9,068 in the Election Commission’s 8:00 AM update. In Sarlahi-4, RSP candidate Amreshkumar Singh trailed Nepali Congress president Gagan Kumar Thapa, with Singh on 11,383 votes and Thapa on 6,952 in the latest count.
The March 5 election featured 68 parties, 3,406 FPTP candidates and 1,270 names on Proportional Representation (PR) lists. Voters also cast ballots for 110 PR seats. Nepal’s lower house has 275 seats in total; a single-party majority requires 138 seats, while a two-thirds majority is 186 seats.
With FPTP results still being tallied, projections indicate RSP is likely to exceed the simple majority threshold. RSP vice-president Dol Prasad Aryal told ANI the party expects to win an absolute two-thirds majority, saying, “One hundred and eight six. Yes, in total we are expecting one hundred and eighty-six seats in total.”
(This report is sourced from a syndicated feed and published as received. The Tribune assumes no responsibility for accuracy, completeness, or content.)
