KATHMANDU: Nepal’s centrist RSP party of rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah won a majority in parliament with 182 seats, Election Commission results showed on Thursday.
The March 5 vote elected a new 275-member House of Representatives, the lower house of parliament, with 165 seats chosen directly and 110 through a proportional representation vote.
“The counting of votes for the election of members of the House of Representatives... has been completed,” Election Commission spokesman Narayan Prasad Bhattarai said in a statement.
In direct elections, RSP won 125 of the 165, and secured another 57 in PR votes, leaving them only two seats short of securing a powerful two-thirds majority.
The Nepali Congress, which was the biggest party in the last parliament, secured 38 seats and the Marxists of now-defeated KP Sharma Oli trailing with 25 seats. The Maoists have seven seats.
“A letter has been sent to the concerned political parties today to select the names of the candidates, and submit them to the Commission within three days,” Bhattarai said.
Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2026