Nepal's Political Earthquake: RSP Wins 182 Seats, Ending 17 Years of Coalition Politics

On 5 March 2026, Nepal held its most consequential election since the declaration of the republic in 2008. Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), founded in 2022 by then-Kathmandu Mayor Balendra Shah, won 182 of 275 parliamentary seats — a 66% majority that no single party had achieved in Nepal's republican era.

The result dismantled the three-party system that had governed Nepal since 2008. Nepali Congress, which had been the largest party in the previous parliament, was reduced to 49 seats. CPN-UML fell to 28. CPN (Maoist Centre), the former insurgency that had shaped post-2006 Nepal, won just 9 seats — near-elimination from national politics.

RSP's campaign centred on four pillars: ending government corruption through meritocratic civil service reform, building road and electricity infrastructure across all 77 districts, negotiating aid dependency more assertively with India and China, and creating economic conditions for the diaspora to return. The party fielded candidates in every constituency, many of them under 40 — engineers, doctors, teachers, and local business owners.

Voter turnout reached 72%, the highest since 2008. Exit polls showed RSP winning over 70% of the 18-35 vote nationally. In the Terai, where Madhesi parties had dominated for two decades, RSP swept constituencies by running Madhesi candidates on a national platform rather than identity politics.

On 27 March 2026, Balendra Shah was sworn in as Nepal's 47th Prime Minister. At 38, he is the youngest PM in Nepali history, and the first of Madhesi origin — a detail that carries significant weight in a country where the Hills-Plains divide has defined political competition since the 2007 Madhesi uprising.

Nepal Next will track the RSP government's delivery against its campaign promises. All monitoring uses the same verification standards as this platform's other coverage.