Polls Open to Elect 275-Member House of Representatives

Voting has begun across Nepal to elect the 275-member House of Representatives, the lower house of the Federal Parliament, which was dissolved six months ago following the Gen Z uprising.

Voters lined up at more than 23,000 polling centres across the country from early morning. Voting began at 7 a.m. and will continue till 5 p.m. Those arriving at polling centres before 5 p.m. will be allowed to cast their ballots. Turnout is expected to surpass the 61 percent recorded in the 2022 general election.

According to the Election Commission, 18.9 million people are eligible to vote this time. Of them, 915,119 are new voters.

The Tarai-Madhesh region, home to more than half the population, has emerged as a key battleground. Former Kathmandu mayor Balendra Shah, fielded as a prime ministerial candidate by the Rabi Lamichhane-led Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), is challenging CPN-UML chair KP Sharma Oli in Jhapa-5, Oli’s home constituency in far-eastern Nepal bordering India.

Oli has won six of the last seven elections in Jhapa since 1991. Shah, a rapper and an engineer, commands strong popularity, particularly among young voters. The race is widely seen as a contest between an established political heavyweight and a youthful challenger riding a wave of change.

Gagan Thapa, who unseated Sher Bahadur Deuba as Nepali Congress president through a special general convention in January, has shifted to Sarlahi-4. There, he faces Amresh Kumar Singh, a former Nepali Congress leader who later contested as an independent and is now an RSP candidate. Thapa previously won three elections from Kathmandu-4.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who led the decade-long Maoist insurgency, has moved away from that ideology and shifted his constituency, again, to Rukum (East)-1. He is now the coordinator of Nepali Communist Party, formed through the merger of nearly a dozen smaller leftist groups. Dahal’s party, then the CPN (Maoist Centre), emerged as kingmaker with 32 seats in the 2022 election. Dahal, a master of forming and breaking alliances to grab the PM’s chair, went on to become the prime minister. He will be looking to repeat that leverage.

RSP, the fourth-largest party in the dissolved House with 20 seats, is widely expected to improve its performance. In 2022, the Nepali Congress emerged as the largest party with 89 seats, followed by the CPN-UML with 78. However, the Congress’s internal leadership tussle and UML’s stance during the September protests are expected to dent their prospects.

Among newer forces seeking to expand their footprint are the Ujyalo Nepal Party, led by former Nepal Electricity Authority Managing Director Kulman Ghising, and the Shram Sanskriti Party, headed by former Dharan mayor Harka Sampang. Sampang’s party is expected to perform strongly in Koshi Province, drawing support from indigenous communities.

Ghising, credited by many with ending chronic load-shedding, faces a tough challenge in Kathmandu-3 from RSP’s Raju Pandey, former chief of Kathmandu’s municipal police during Shah’s mayoral tenure.

Nepal follows a mixed electoral system. Of the 275 seats, 165 are elected under the first-past-the-post system and 110 through proportional representation. Proportional seats are allocated only to parties that secure at least one first-past-the-post seat and cross the three percent threshold of valid proportional votes. The Sainte-Laguë method is used to distribute seats, aiming to ensure a fair allocation that does not unduly favour larger parties.

Of the 3,406 candidates in the final list published by the Election Commission for the 165 first-past-the-post seats, a few candidacies were later invalidated. A total of 3,135 candidates are contesting under the proportional representation category.

The election campaign concluded at midnight on March 2.

This election has been widely viewed as a litmus test of the September protests that led to the dissolution of the Lower House. The unrest resulted in at least 76 deaths, including protesters, security personnel and inmates who attempted to escape during the chaos. Many were found dead inside buildings set ablaze on September 9, the second day of nationwide unrest.

At least 19 protesters were killed on the first day, most of them in Kathmandu, after demonstrations against a ban on more than two dozen social media platforms, corruption and nepotism turned violent. Police fired rubber bullets and live rounds after protesters broke barricades in New Baneshwar and advanced towards the Federal Parliament building, a designated no-protest zone. While many demonstrators, including students in uniform, protested peacefully, some attempted to breach the Parliament premises and clashed with security forces.

Footage of the brutal crackdown quickly spread on social media. Though then home minister Ramesh Lekhak resigned the same evening, protests intensified the following day despite curfew orders. Public and private property was vandalised and set on fire, including the residences of political leaders and key state institutions.

More than 2,000 people were injured.

Oli was reportedly made to resign on September 9. He was flown to safety by the Army. Several political leaders were sheltered in army camps. Sher Bahadur Deuba and his wife, then foreign minister Aarzu Rana, were assaulted at their Budanilkantha residence. Their home was vandalised and set ablaze. Security forces, with the help of some protesters, rescued them.

Order was restored only after the Army was mobilised. On September 12, President Ramchandra Paudel appointed former chief justice Sushila Karki as interim prime minister. She dissolved Parliament and announced elections for March 5, 2026.

The Election Commission has claimed that it would announce first-past-the-post results within 24 hours, though past elections have seen final results take several days.