Nepal's Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) has delivered one of the most decisive electoral victories in the country's modern political history, securing nearly 76 per cent of the seats counted under the First-Past-the-Post system and potentially heading toward a near two-thirds majority in the 275-member House of Representatives.
As of Monday evening, counting had concluded in 163 of 165 FPTP constituencies, with the RSP winning 125 seats. The party is also leading under the proportional representation system with over 48 per cent of the vote share — putting it on course for approximately 184 seats in total if the trend holds.
No single party has secured a two-thirds majority in Nepal's lower house since the 1991 elections.
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The most striking result of the night came from Jhapa-5 — long considered the stronghold of former Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli — where RSP Prime Ministerial candidate and former Kathmandu Mayor Balen Shah defeated Oli with 68,348 votes, the largest individual vote tally in Nepal's parliamentary history.
One heavyweight after another from Nepal's traditional political parties fell before the RSP wave, including Nepali Congress President and Prime Ministerial candidate Gagan Thapa, who lost to an RSP candidate in Sarlahi-4 constituency in Madhesh Province.
The scale of the victory is particularly striking given that the RSP, led by President Rabi Lamichhane, is only three and a half years old. Achieving what analysts describe as a historically difficult feat — securing close to a two-thirds majority in a system where 40 per cent of seats are filled through proportional representation — makes the result all the more remarkable.
The last time a comparable majority was approached was in 2017, when the CPN-UML and the erstwhile CPN (Maoist Centre) forged an electoral alliance. Even then, it required a merger of two established communist parties to approach that threshold.
Political analysts say the result reflects deep and long-building public frustration with Nepal's traditional political establishment.
"The people's verdict reflects the anger against established political parties for their misrule, as we have seen state institutions being heavily filled with individuals close to political parties instead of competent professionals," said Rajendra Maharjan, a Kathmandu-based political analyst.
Maharjan and others pointed to the Gen-Z protests of September 2025 — which brought down Oli's coalition government — as a clear warning sign that voters had already turned against the old guard. Traditional party leaders, analysts say, failed to heed that signal.
"The writing on the wall was already there, but the leadership of traditional political parties continued with their arrogance and failed to pursue leadership changes," Maharjan said.
Beyond anti-incumbency sentiment, analysts cited economic underperformance and foreign policy failures as major factors driving voters toward the RSP.
"Job creation has remained weak, while a large number of young people have been leaving the country in search of foreign employment," said Arun Subedi, a political analyst and former foreign policy adviser. "A combination of these factors contributed to the rise of a new political force sweeping all before it."
The Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, and the erstwhile CPN (Maoist Centre) had alternated in power for nearly two decades, with their respective leaders — Sher Bahadur Deuba, K P Sharma Oli, and Pushpa Kamal Dahal — dominating the political landscape throughout that period.
That era now appears to be over.