The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), led by former civil engineer and hip-hop artist Balendra Shah (known as "Balen"), has secured a commanding majority in Nepal's parliamentary elections, according to official results. The Election Commission announced on Thursday that the party won 182 seats in the 275-member lower house, with 125 seats won directly and 57 through proportional representation, capping one of the most dramatic electoral contests in the country's recent history.
The Nepali Congress party finished in second place with 38 seats, while the Marxist party of veteran four-time Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli, whose government was ousted in a youth-led uprising last year, managed to secure only 25 seats. In a symbolic defeat, Shah personally triumphed over the 74-year-old Oli in his own constituency. Oli, who had dominated Nepali politics for years, congratulated his rival on social media platform X, wishing him a "smooth and successful" term.
The political upheaval follows the September 2025 protests that reshaped Nepal's landscape, initially triggered by a government ban on social media but rapidly swelling into a mass movement against corruption and economic stagnation, which left at least 77 people dead. Shah, whose music had long targeted those same grievances, emerged as a figurehead of the unrest; his song "Nepal Haseko" ("Nepal Smiling") accumulated over 10 million YouTube views during the turmoil.
Shah's unlikely path from engineer to rapper to Kathmandu's first independent mayor in 2022, and now to likely prime minister, reflects a profound generational shift in a country where more than 40% of the nearly 30 million population is under 35, yet established party leadership has long remained in its 70s. Shah stated that his victory signals a refusal to take "the easy way out" and a reckoning with the "problems and betrayals that have affected the country."
The RSP, founded the same year as his mayoral win, ran a highly organized campaign backed by diaspora funding, particularly from Nepali communities in the United States. Nepalese journalist Pranaya Rana described Shah to Al Jazeera as embodying "the outsider spirit that many young Nepalis are looking for to shake up the status quo." India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the vote a "proud moment" in Nepal's democratic journey, pledging close cooperation with the incoming government.
Under Nepal's constitutional process, parties must now submit names to fill proportionally allocated seats before parliament is formally summoned by the president. A new prime minister, who will need the support of at least half of all members, is not expected to be confirmed for several days, as the country navigates this significant political transition.
Source: www.aljazeera.com