Kathmandu, March 6 Prime Ministerial candidate from the Rastriya Swatantra Party, Balendra Shah, is leading against former PM K.P. Sharma Oli in Jhapa-5 in eastern Nepal, as the RSP takes a sweeping early lead in the country’s parliamentary elections.
Shah, the former mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City, is locked in a contest with Oli in the latter’s traditional political stronghold in a battle between two prime ministerial aspirants.
According to the early vote count on the online portal Ekantipur, Shah has secured 1,478 votes, while Oli has received 385 votes.
Besides Shah’s lead, his party -- the RSP -- is also taking a sweeping lead in early vote counting, as the relatively new political party seeks to end the decades-long dominance of traditional political parties in national politics.
According to the latest update, the RSP is leading in 39 electoral constituencies, followed by the Nepali Congress, which is ahead in three constituencies. The Nepali Communist Party (NCP) is leading in two constituencies, while the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), led by former Prime Minister Oli, has no lead in any constituency.
Vote counting is underway under the First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) system, through which 165 members of the House of Representatives, the Lower House of Parliament, will be elected. An additional 110 members will be elected through the proportional representation system to make up the 275-member Lower House.
Early results suggest that the decades-long dominance of three major political parties -- the Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML, and the Nepal Communist Party, formed after the merger of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Socialist), among others -- may be coming to an end.
The country is holding its first elections after the Gen Z protests in September last year, which brought down the coalition government led by then-Prime Minister Oli. A growing perception among the Nepali public that the country was lagging behind because of traditional parties and their leadership had triggered strong Gen Z protests.
As the elections were held six months after the Gen Z revolt, traditional political parties appear to be performing poorly, while the relatively new political force -- the RSP, led by former media personality Rabi Lamichhane -- is making a strong showing in the polls.
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