Nepal went to the polls on Thursday, March 5, 2026, in its first nationwide parliamentary election since violent youth-led protests in September 2025 forced the resignation of Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli and triggered the dissolution of the House of Representatives. Voters across the Himalayan nation of approximately 30 million people cast ballots to elect all 275 members of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Federal Parliament of Nepal, in an election brought forward from the scheduled December 2027 cycle under constitutional obligations requiring a fresh mandate within six months of parliamentary dissolution.
How did the September 2025 Gen Z protests in Nepal lead to Khadga Prasad Oli’s resignation and snap elections?
Youth demonstrations, later described as “Gen Z” protests due to the prominent role of young leaders, evolved into broader mobilisation against systemic corruption, entrenched political elites and persistent economic challenges. The protests against corruption and poor governance were initially triggered by a social media ban before escalating into a wider popular revolt against the government. At least 77 people were killed and hundreds more injured when protesters attacked government buildings and police opened fire on crowds, according to reports from the period.
Invoking Article 61 of the Constitution of Nepal to safeguard national unity during the crisis, the President appointed former Chief Justice Sushila Karki as interim Prime Minister. Karki became the first woman to lead a government in Nepal’s history. Her interim administration was tasked exclusively with stabilising the country and conducting free and fair elections within a six-month window, a mandate she reaffirmed by appointing a cabinet consisting largely of technocrats and civil society leaders.
Under Article 76 and Article 85 of the Constitution of Nepal, general elections must be held within six months of dissolution of the House of Representatives. The Federal Parliament of Nepal was formally dissolved on 6 October 2025. Under a normal electoral cycle, the next election would not have been due until December 2027. Nepal had previously held federal elections in 2017 and 2022 under the 2015 constitution, with neither producing governments capable of sustaining stable parliamentary majorities over a full term.
Who are the main political parties and prime ministerial candidates competing in Nepal’s 2026 general election?
The election is widely seen as a three-way contest shaped by voter frustration over widespread corruption and demands for greater government accountability. The National Independent Party, founded in 2022, is considered a front-runner, posing a strong challenge to two long-dominant parties: the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist).
The National Independent Party’s prime ministerial candidate is rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah, who won the 2022 Kathmandu mayoral race and emerged as a prominent figure in the September 2025 uprising that ousted former Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli. Shah, 35, focused his campaign on health and education for poor Nepalis. He contested the March 5 election from the Jhapa 5 constituency, directly against Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) chairman and former Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli.
The Nepali Congress, a centre-left democratic party and one of Nepal’s oldest political organisations, and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), a leftist party that supports social democracy and national development through state-led and market-oriented policies, both carried the disadvantage of having formed part of the coalition government ousted in September 2025. Both faced sustained public dissatisfaction heading into the March 5 vote.
How does Nepal’s mixed electoral system work and what determines who becomes prime minister?
In 2015, Nepal introduced a mixed electoral system. Voters directly elect 165 members to the House of Representatives through a first-past-the-post system, under which the candidate with the highest number of votes in each constituency wins the seat. The remaining 110 seats in the 275-member House are filled through a proportional representation system, with political parties nominating lawmakers based on the share of votes each party receives nationwide. A party or electoral alliance must obtain a minimum of 3 percent of the overall valid vote to be allocated seats under the proportional representation system.
The prime minister is not directly elected by voters but is chosen from among members of the House of Representatives who can demonstrate the confidence of a majority. Previous governments in Nepal have largely been coalitions, with two or more parties joining forces to command a majority in the House. This coalition-dependent structure has historically produced fragile governments and frequent changes in prime ministerial leadership, with Nepal having seen more than a dozen prime ministers since the restoration of multiparty democracy in the early 1990s.
What is the voter turnout and security situation during the March 5 Nepal parliamentary election?
Voter turnout reached approximately 18 percent by noon on Thursday, according to the Election Commission of Nepal. Election Commission spokesperson Narayan Prasad Bhattarai said 3,163,736 ballots had been cast across the country by midday. Turnout had stood at around 6 percent by 9:30 am and rose to 10.18 percent by 11:00 am as polling gained momentum. Acting chief election commissioner Ram Prasad Bhandari anticipated final turnout of at least 65 percent, citing widespread public enthusiasm.
A total of 18,903,689 voters are eligible in the election, an increase of 915,119 compared to the 2022 polls. Around 52 percent of registered voters are aged between 18 and 40. The number of registered voters rose by nearly one million since the last parliamentary election in November 2022, driven in part by the surge in youth political engagement following the September 2025 protests. Approximately 800,000 first-time voters registered to participate. About 9.66 million voters are men and 9.24 million are women.
The Election Commission of Nepal deployed 341,113 security personnel, including 149,000 temporary election police, across 23,112 polling centres at 10,963 polling stations. Voting proceeded largely without disruption. Election Commissioner Sagun Shumsher Rana confirmed polling was progressing normally across most districts. Nepal Police spokesperson Abi Narayan Kafle said minor disagreements occurred at a few polling centres but no serious problems were reported. Approximately 4,500 observers from three international organisations and 37 national organisations were accredited to monitor the election.
An estimated 3 million Nepali citizens work abroad, largely in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and neighbouring India, and cannot cast ballots because Nepal does not yet have a system allowing overseas voting.
When will Nepal election results 2026 be announced and what are the coalition scenarios?
The Election Commission of Nepal said it plans to announce the outcomes of the 165 first-past-the-post seats within 24 hours after ballot boxes are gathered from across the country, a process that itself usually takes at least a full day. Counting votes under the proportional representation system, which decides the allocation of the remaining 110 seats, may require an additional two to three days, meaning final results are expected over the weekend of March 7 and 8, 2026. During Nepal’s previous general election in November 2022, authorities took more than two weeks to publish the complete final results.
Given Nepal’s history of coalition politics and its mixed electoral system, no single party is expected to win an outright majority in the 275-seat House of Representatives. The outcome is likely to require post-election negotiations between multiple parties before a government can be formed and a prime minister confirmed. The election is widely viewed as a referendum on whether Nepali voters will reward the established parties that dominated the political landscape for decades or hand power to a new generation represented by the National Independent Party and its prime ministerial candidate Balendra Shah.
Key takeaways on what Nepal’s 2026 parliamentary elections mean for the country’s political future and democratic stability
- Nepal held its first general election on March 5, 2026, following the September 2025 dissolution of the House of Representatives after youth-led protests killed at least 77 people and forced the resignation of Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli.
- Approximately 18.9 million registered voters, including 800,000 first-time voters, were eligible to cast ballots across 23,112 polling centres, with turnout on track to reach at least 65 percent according to election commission projections.
- The election is structured as a three-way contest between the National Independent Party, led by prime ministerial candidate Balendra Shah, and the two long-dominant parties, the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), both of which formed part of the ousted government.
- Interim Prime Minister Sushila Karki, the first woman to lead a government in Nepal’s history, successfully completed her constitutional mandate of stabilising the country and delivering elections within the six-month constitutional deadline.
- Results for the 165 first-past-the-post seats are expected within 24 to 48 hours of polls closing, with the full 275-seat outcome including proportional representation allocations likely to be confirmed by the weekend of March 7 to 8, 2026.
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