The Tamesis
March 9, 2026
kathmandu – Jhapa-5 is the most watched constituency in Nepal’s March 5 elections. The race pits Balendra Shah, the popular former mayor of Kathmandu, against former prime minister KP Sharma Oli, who was ousted by a Gen Z uprising in September 2025.
The contest was symbolic, anchoring a broader narrative of old and new – a septuagenarian former prime minister pitted against a 35-year-old millennial. The animosity between the two men was well known and was further intensified during the deadly uprising led by Oli in which 77 unarmed men were killed. Before the election, Shah refused to debate Oli, saying he would not share the stage with a “murderer”.
Many expected the competition to be tight. But once vote counting began after midnight on March 5, the campaign took a rather anticlimactic turn. From the start, Shah led by a huge margin.
The results for the constituency were announced on Saturday evening. Shah, who was hailed as the PPP’s prime ministerial candidate, not only won the seat; He was elected with a huge margin of 49,614 votes, the largest in the history of Nepal’s parliamentary elections. Shah polled 68,348 votes against Oli’s 18,734 votes. It was a dismal performance for the former prime minister who polled 52,319 votes in the same constituency of his home state in the 2022 general election.
For Shah, the result means he will now become Nepal’s next prime minister, as the RSS is expected to secure a majority, if not an absolute two-thirds “supermajority”.
Shah, a rapper and structural engineer, shot to fame when he upset traditional party candidates in 2022 local elections as an independent and became mayor of Kathmandu, the country’s most populous metropolis.
Shah served as the mayor of Kathmandu from May 2022 until his resignation in January 2026, and officially joined the RSP at the end of 2025 to enter national politics.
Many believe Shah sparked the “RSP wave” in the recent elections. The party, which was founded just four years ago, continued to dominate Saturday’s simple majority vote (FPTP) tally and maintained its lead and victory on Friday. It also leads steadily in proportional representation (PR) votes.
Along with the Shah, other RSS leaders also achieved landslide victories. Party chairman Rabbi Ramichahn has been accused of collaborating in fraud, but this does not appear to have affected his electoral performance. Former TV host Lamichhane was elected from Chitwan-2 district, polling 54,402 votes, while Nepali Congress MP Mina Kumari Kharel polled 14,564 votes.
Similarly, another RSP candidate Dr Lekh Jung Thapa also claimed victory in Rupandehi-3. The scale of the “wave” was underlined by the fact that none of the other 35 candidates, including prominent representatives of the Nepali Congress Party and the Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist-Leninist Party, met the 10% valid vote threshold required to recover their deposit in the constituency.
In another striking result, RSP’s Sobita Gautam was elected from Chitwan-3 with 59,277 votes. She defeated her nearest rival, Nepal Communist Party candidate Renu Dahal, by a margin of 38,662 votes.
At press time, the RSP continued to dominate the FPTP vote count, winning 80 seats and leading in 42 other constituencies.
At the same time, traditional political parties are suffering unprecedented blows and can only lick their wounds.
The Nepali Congress won a meager 12 seats and was leading in six other constituencies, while the CPN-UML won five seats and was leading in seven constituencies. Nepal Communist Party won 4 seats and led in 4 constituencies. The royalist Revolutionary People’s Party (RPP) won one seat, while the Shram Sanskriti Party led in three constituencies. Independent candidate Mahabir Pun won in Myagdi constituency.
In the PR count, the RSP leads by more than 580,000 votes, with about 1.13 million votes counted so far. The Congress received 193,916 votes, followed by the United Marxist-Leninist (153,552 votes) and Communist Party of Nepal (76,495 votes). RPP got 41,808 votes, Shram Sanskriti Party got 20,605 votes and Rastriya Pariwartan Party (Ujyalo Nepal Party) got 16,052 votes.
However, the highlight of the day was Shah’s decisive victory over Oli.
Shah went to the polling office in Jhapa on Saturday evening to collect his victory certificate. He also held a victory rally and was greeted by eagerly awaited crowds. “Congratulations to all of you,” Shah said while standing on top of a car displaying a banner. “You win.” Messages of congratulations poured in on social media.
Shortly after the match was announced, Ollie chimed in.
“Congratulations on your win, Baron Babb,” Ollie captioned a blurry photo of the two together, taken in the good old days. “I wish you a smooth and successful five-year term – best wishes to you!”
