Six months ago, when Nepali Gen Z began raising their voices against corruption on social media, few in the political establishment took them seriously. The posts were dismissed as another wave of online frustration, loud but ultimately inconsequential. That assumption collapsed on September 8, when thousands of young protesters took to the streets in demonstrations that quickly grew far beyond what even organizers expected.
But within a day, the protests turned deadly as security forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing 19 protesters and injuring hundreds. The violence triggered a nationwide uprising that forced the resignation of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli. In the political vacuum that followed, former Chief Justice Sushila Karki was selected through an unprecedented digital vote organized by youth networks to serve as interim prime minister who had two major roles: restore stability after the uprising and conduct new elections within six months.
At the time, many observers doubted that elections would happen on schedule. Nepal's recent political history, marked by repeated crises, fragile coalitions, and dissolutions of parliament made this skepticism understandable. Even among those who expected elections to occur, not many were confident they would fundamentally reshape the political landscape. The prevailing assumption was that Nepal's long-dominant parties, the Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML, and the Maoist Center, would eventually regain their footing once the turbulence of the protests subsided.
What this assumption overlooked, however, was the depth of frustration and impatience for change that had been accumulating across Nepali society.
The protests that erupted in September were not simply expressions of directed anger at a single government or political leader. Rather, they reflected a broader disillusionment with a political system that many citizens had come to see as stagnant and unresponsive. Over the past decade, Nepali politics has been marked by frequent changes of government, corruption controversies, elite bargaining, and prolonged leadership struggles within major parties. Elections continued to take place evenly, but many voters increasingly felt that the same political actors kept circulating without keeping positions of power delivery meaningful improvements in governance or institutional accountability.
It was within this atmosphere of growing dissatisfaction that the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), a relatively new political force that until recently held only a small presence in parliament, began attracting attention as a vehicle for political change. For much of its early existence, the party was seen as a marginal player in Nepal's crowded political field, competing against organizations with far deeper historical roots and much stronger patronage networks. Even as the campaign for the current election unfolded, many within the same old power brokers consistently claimed they would gain majority again. The results now emerging strongly suggest that these claims and assumptions may have been profoundly mistaken.
Based on the current results, the Rastriya Swatantra Party is leading in more than 100 of the 133 constituencies where votes are still being tallied and already won 20 seats . The Nepali Congress, though already victorious in 4 places; Mustang, Manang, Rasuwa, and Dailekh is leading in only a little over a dozen seats, while the CPN-UML and Maoist-aligned forces are leading in a few but trailing well behind. If these trends hold through the final count, Nepal may be witnessing one of the most dramatic electoral upheavals in its democratic history.
Equally striking is the geographic breadth of the RSP's performance. This is not a surge confined to Kathmandu Valley, educated urban youth, or a handful of media-saturated constituencies. Observing the results, the party is leading not only in urban centers like it did in previous election, but also across districts stretching from Jhapa and Morang in the east to Kailali, Kanchanpur, Baitadi, and Dedeldhura in the far west. It is also performing strongly across Bagmati, Gandaki, and Lumbini, including constituencies in Chitwan, Kaski, Tanahun, Dhading, Rupandehi, Dang, Banke, and Bardiya which were traditional strongholds of old political parties. What once seemed limited to urban protests has now swept across the country in the election results.
The scale of this shift becomes even clearer when viewed against the results of Nepal's 2022 general election. In the previous election, the Nepali Congress emerged as the largest party in the 275-member House of Representatives with 89 seats, followed by the CPN-UML with 78 and the Maoist Center with 32. The RSP, then a newly formed political force, won 20 seats, an impressive debut, but still far from dominance. Because Nepal's electoral system combines 165 directly elected seats with 110 proportional-representation seats, a party or coalition needs 138 seats to command a majority in parliament. The fragmented outcome of 2022 made coalition-building unavoidable, extending a pattern of unstable alliances that has defined Nepali politics for much of the past decade.
That is what makes the present moment so extraordinary. A party that held only a limited parliamentary foothold three years ago now appears capable—if current trends persist—of becoming the central force in Nepal's political system. Whether or not it ultimately crosses the majority threshold on its own, the scale of its current lead already signals a rupture with Nepal's recent past.
At the same time, many traditional political fortress appear far less secure than they once were. For decades, numerous constituencies in Nepal were closely associated with particular leaders whose victories were widely assumed to be inevitable. However, currently, across the country, well-known figures from the CPN-UML, Nepali Congress and Maoist Centre are facing unexpectedly strong challenges from newcomers and younger candidates. In constituency after constituency, voters appear more willing than before to break with inherited loyalties and support candidates who present themselves as representatives of a different political culture. The shift might suggest that the current result may extend beyond a temporary protest vote and instead reflect a deeper change in how Nepali voters are thinking about political legitimacy itself.
The last time Nepal experienced a political earthquake of comparable scale was in 2008, when the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) emerged as the largest force in the country's first Constituent Assembly election. That victory followed a decade-long insurgency that had fundamentally reshaped the political landscape and ultimately contributed to the abolition of the monarchy and the declaration of Nepal as a republic. Nearly a decade later, another major shift came in the 2017 general election, when the left alliance between the CPN-UML and the Maoist Center secured a decisive victory by promising political stability and development after the promulgation of the new constitution.
Yet the current moment differs in important ways from both of those earlier transitions. The Maoist breakthrough in 2008 emerged from a revolutionary movement grounded in armed conflict and systemic rupture. The left alliance victory in 2017 drew legitimacy from promises of stability and constitutional consolidation. The current RSP surge, by contrast, appears to be driven less by ideology than by accumulated dissatisfaction with governance itself. Many voters do not seem to be rallying around a grand doctrine project. They are instead rejecting a political order they believe has repeatedly failed them.
Generational change has also played a central role. A significant portion of Nepal's electorate now consists of citizens who grew up after the restoration of multiparty democracy in the 1990s. Unlike earlier generations, they do not necessarily carry emotional loyalty to the historical struggles that gave the country's major parties their moral legitimacy. Their political expectations have been shaped by a different environment, one defined by global connectivity, digital communication, migration, exposure to international standards of governance and rising expectations for transparency and accountability. Many younger voters do not ask which party once fought for democracy. They ask who can make democracy work.
Before the September protests, however, many young Nepalis remained only loosely engaged with formal politics. Years of instability had produced not only anger but cynicism. For many young people, politics felt distant from daily life, and voting often appeared symbolic rather than consequential. The September movement changed that perception, transforming online outrage into real-world participation.
In many respects, voters used this election to stage a quiet revolt. That may be the most important lesson of this political moment. For years, many Nepalis had come to believe that the system was effectively closed and was impossible to change the structure of the political formation. This election is changing that assumption. It suggests that even entrenched political monopolies remain vulnerable when citizens withdraw their consent and act collectively.
The future remains uncertain. Winning elections is one thing; governing effectively is another. The RSP now faces immense expectations to translate public frustration into real reforms. If it fails, disillusionment could deepen. But today, the victory itself sends a powerful message: in a democracy, power ultimately belongs to the people.
(Ms Baral holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing)
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