Rastriya Swatantra Party wins 125 direct seats in Nepal parliamentary polls

Nepal’s Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) has secured a commanding lead in the country’s parliamentary elections, winning 125 of the 165 seats contested under the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, according to the Election Commission on Tuesday.

With the vote counting for all directly elected seats now completed, the RSP has emerged as the largest party in the House of Representatives and is well placed to form the next government.

The Nepali Congress (NC) finished a distant second with 18 seats under the direct voting system, followed by the Communist Party of Nepal–Unified Marxist–Leninist (CPN-UML) with nine seats. The Nepali Communist Party (NCP) secured eight seats, while the Shram Sanskriti Party (SSP) won three. The Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) captured one seat, and an independent candidate also won a constituency.

Meanwhile, counting of votes under the proportional representation (PR) system is still ongoing and is expected to conclude later on Tuesday.

Preliminary figures released by the Election Commission show the RSP leading the proportional vote count with 4,974,957 votes. The Nepali Congress has received 1,685,722 votes so far, followed by CPN-UML with 1,402,157 votes. The NCP has secured 763,633 votes, while the SSP and RPP have garnered 350,809 and 323,744 votes respectively.

Based on current trends, the RSP is projected to win at least 50 seats through the proportional representation system. If that estimate holds, the party’s total strength in the 275-member House of Representatives would rise to around 175 seats.

Such a tally would give the RSP a clear majority and enable it to form a government under Article 76(1) of Nepal’s Constitution.

However, the Election Commission said the final allocation of seats under the proportional representation system will take a few more days, as officials complete the counting process and formally distribute seats among the contesting parties.

With PTI inputs