landslide

Rastriya Swatantra Party, founded just four years ago, set to dominate new parliament with near two-thirds majority.

A political party led by a rapper-turned-politician has won a sweeping parliamentary majority in Nepal, official results show, capping one of the most dramatic elections in the country’s recent history.

The Rastriya Swatantra Party of Balendra Shah, a 35-year-old former civil engineer and hip-hop artist known simply as “Balen”, secured 182 seats in the 275-member lower house of parliament, the Election Commission said on Thursday, with 125 won directly and a further 57 through proportional representation.

The Nepali Congress party finished in second place, with 38 seats. The Marxist party of veteran four-time Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli, whose government was ousted in a youth-led uprising last year, won just 25 seats.

Shah himself defeated the 74-year-old Oli in his own constituency.

Oli, who had dominated Nepali politics for years, congratulated his rival on X, wishing him a “smooth and successful” term.

The September 2025 protests that reshaped the country’s political landscape were initially set off by a government ban on social media, but rapidly swelled into a mass movement against corruption and economic stagnation, leaving at least 77 people dead.

Shah, whose music had long targeted those same grievances, emerged as a figurehead of the unrest, his song Nepal Haseko, or Nepal Smiling, accumulating more than 10 million YouTube views during the turmoil.

His path to likely prime minister, from engineer to rapper to Kathmandu’s first independent mayor in 2022, reflects a generational shift in a country where more than 40 percent of the nearly 30 million population is under 35, yet whose established party leadership has long remained in its 70s.

Shah said his victory was a signal of refusal to take “the easy way out” and a reckoning with the “problems and betrayals that have affected the country.”

The RSP, founded the same year as his mayoral win, ran a highly organised campaign backed by diaspora funding, particularly from Nepali communities in the United States.

Nepalese journalist Pranaya Rana described Shah to Al Jazeera as embodying “the outsider spirit that many young Nepalis are looking for to shake up the status quo.”

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the vote a “proud moment” in Nepal’s democratic journey, pledging close cooperation with the incoming government.

Under Nepal’s constitutional process, parties must now submit names to fill proportionally allocated seats before parliament is formally summoned by the president. A new prime minister, who will need the support of at least half of all members, is not expected to be confirmed for several days.

Shah’s party represents a reformist wave reshaping the Himalayan nation’s politics since last year’s youth-led uprising.

Nepal’s centrist Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) of rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah has secured a majority in the direct parliamentary elections and is heading for a landslide, according to official results and election commission trends.

The 35-year-old’s RSP party was also leading in proportional representation vote, according to results declared until early Sunday, in the country’s first election since last year’s youth-led uprising which toppled the government.

Elections on Thursday chose a new 275-member House of Representatives, the lower house of parliament, with 165 seats chosen directly, and 110 by a proportional representation vote.

Shah’s RSP has already won nearly 100 of 165 directly elected seats and is leading in over a dozen other constituencies in the results published by Nepal’s Election Commission early on Sunday.

Shah, widely known simply as “Balen”, himself on Saturday defeated the veteran four-time Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli – whose Marxist-led government was ousted in the protests last year – in his own seat in a southeastern district, securing almost four times as many votes as Oli.

His victory over the 74-year-old Oli, and his rise from the capital Kathmandu’s mayor to potential prime minister, marks one of the most dramatic results in recent Nepali politics.

He highlighted health and education for poor Nepalis as a key focus of his campaign, which rode a wave of public anger towards traditional political parties. He said the vote reflected his refusal to take “the easy way out” and signalled a reckoning with the “problems and betrayals that have affected the country”.

Oil congratulated Shah in a post on X, wishing him a “smooth and successful” term.

[Translation: Balenu Babu, Congratulations to you for the victory! May your five-year tenure be smooth and successful—heartfelt best wishes!]

Neighbouring India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said the successful and peaceful conduct of elections in Nepal was a “proud moment” in the country’s “democratic journey”.

“It is heartening to see my Nepali sisters and brothers exercise their democratic rights so vibrantly,” Modi wrote on X. “This historic milestone is a proud moment in Nepal’s democratic journey.”

Modi assured of working together with the new government. “As a close friend and neighbour, India remains steadfast in its commitment to working closely with the people of Nepal and their new Government to scale new heights of shared peace, progress and prosperity.”

‘Shake up the status quo’

Shah trained as a civil engineer before breaking through as one of Nepal’s most prominent rappers, releasing conscious music targeting corruption and inequality that later became anthems of the September protests.

His 2022 election as Kathmandu’s first independent mayor was also a major upset for the political establishment at the time. The RSP, his party, founded the same year, was built on a similar anti-establishment platform.

Its campaign before Thursday’s vote was highly organised, with a more-than-660-person social media operation and significant funding from the Nepali diaspora, particularly in the United States.

“The nation was fed up with the old corrupt leaders,” said Birendra Kumar Mehta, a member of RSP’s central committee.

The September protests, initially triggered by a government ban on social media platforms, rapidly escalated into a mass movement against corruption and economic stagnation. At least 77 people were killed.

Shah emerged as a figurehead of the protests, and his song Nepal Haseko, Nepal Smiling, accumulated more than 10 million YouTube views during the unrest. His victory reflects a growing generational divide in the country.

More than 40 percent of Nepal’s nearly 30 million people are under 35, yet the leadership of its established parties has remained in its 70s.

Nepalese journalist Pranaya Rana described Shah to Al Jazeera as embodying “the outsider spirit that many young Nepalis are looking for to shake up the status quo”.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has claimed victory in the country’s first election since a student-led uprising that ousted longtime leader Sheikh Hasina in 2024.

Unofficial results confirmed by election officials to Al Jazeera on Friday showed the BNP winning 209 seats, easily crossing the 151-seat threshold needed for a majority in parliament.

Its leader, Tarique Rahman, the son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, is now set to become the country’s next prime minister. BNP officials said the party expected to form a government by Sunday.

The BNP was followed by Jamaat-e-Islami, which secured 68 seats in Thursday’s polls – its highest-ever tally.

The party, which is led by Shafiqur Rahman and contested for the first time since a 2013 ban that was lifted after Hasina’s ouster, said it is not “satisfied” with the vote count and raised “serious questions about the integrity of the results process”.

The National Citizen Party (NCP), led by youth activists instrumental in toppling Hasina and part of a Jamaat-led alliance, won just six of the 30 seats that it contested.

The Election Commission has yet to formally announce the final tally, which is expected either later on Friday or on Saturday.

Turnout stood at almost 60 percent of registered voters, according to the Election Commission, well over the nearly 42 percent in the last election in 2024.

The election featured a record number of parties, more than 50, and at least 2,000 candidates, many of them independents. The parliament comprises 350 lawmakers, with 50 seats reserved for women.

More than 127 million people were eligible to cast their votes, with many expressing enthusiasm for what was widely seen as Bangladesh’s first competitive vote in years.

An interim government led by Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, 85, has been in office since Hasina fled to India in 2024 after widespread protests led largely by young people, who were killed in their hundreds by security forces.

Tarique Rahman, who has never held government office, returned to Bangladesh in December after 17 years of self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom. The 60-year-old has yet to comment on the unofficial results but on Friday, he waved from his car as he left his house in the capital, Dhaka, for a mosque.

In a statement, the BNP asked people to refrain from large celebrations and offer special prayers instead.

“Despite winning … by a large margin of votes, no celebratory procession or rally shall be organised,” the party said in a statement.

‘Litmus test’

The 78-year-old former leader, Hasina, was sentenced to death in absentia for crimes against humanity for the bloody crackdown on protesters during her final months in power, and remains in hiding in India. Her Awami League party was barred from the election.

BNP members have said the party would formally request Hasina’s extradition from India. In its manifesto, the BNP promised to prioritise job creation, protect low-income and marginal households and ensure fair prices to farmers. Tarique Rahman has also promised to revive a stagnant economy, reset ties with countries in the region and crack down on corruption.

Abbas Faiz, an independent South Asia researcher, said the election was a test of how Bangladesh was “ready for democracy”.

“Also, a test of the political parties which have been able to take part in the elections. They have actually understood the aspirations and the wishes of the people of their country for the removal of corrupt practices in the administration and parliament,” Faiz told Al Jazeera.

He added the election is the “litmus test” which puts responsibility on the “shoulders of the new government”.

But Faiz explained that the election would have been “fairer” if all parties, including the Awami League, were allowed to participate.

“But in a way, the problem lies with the Awami League itself, because it did not reimage itself as a party that could be trusted by the general populace in Bangladesh,” he said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the US ambassador to Bangladesh, Brent T Christensen, were among the first to congratulate Rahman on his party’s victory. China’s embassy in Dhaka also congratulated the BNP over its election showing.

The election commission also said some 48 million ‌voters chose “Yes” ‌while about 23 million said “No” in a referendum on constitutional reforms held alongside the election, though there was no official word on the outcome.

The changes include two-term limits for prime ministers and stronger judicial independence and women’s representation, while providing for neutral interim governments during election periods and setting up a second house of the 300-seat parliament.

Fahmida Khatun, an economist and executive director of the Dhaka-based Centre for Policy Dialogue, told Al Jazeera that early signals support the perception of a credible election.

Although heavy security was reported across polling stations, “broadly, the voting was peaceful”, Khatun said, pointing to the voter turnout figure as an indicator of healthy participation.

“This indicates citizens wanted to exercise their voting rights and they wanted to choose their own people,” she added.

Several hundred international observers monitored Thursday’s voting, with the European Union’s Election Observation Mission expected to issue a preliminary report on its findings on Sunday.