Nepal election 2026: Rapper Balendra Shah on track to be next PM as party heads for landslide

Published: 09 March 2026
The English Chronicle Desk
The English Chronicle Online

Nepal’s political establishment has been swept aside in a historic election landslide, with the party of former rapper Balendra Shah securing a commanding majority that puts the 35-year-old on track to become the country’s next prime minister .

Shah, known popularly as Balen, defeated four-time former prime minister KP Sharma Oli in his own constituency of Jhapa-5 by a staggering margin of nearly 50,000 votes, receiving 68,348 votes compared to Oli’s 18,734 . The victory marks a dramatic end to decades of dominance by Nepal’s traditional political parties.

The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), which Shah joined only in January, has won 124 of the 165 directly elected seats in the House of Representatives, with results now declared for 161 constituencies . The party is also leading decisively in the proportional representation vote, having secured approximately 3.79 million votes compared to 1.27 million for the Nepali Congress . Analysts say the RSP could be heading for a two-thirds majority when all votes are counted .

This marks the first time in decades that a single party has secured an outright majority in Nepal’s parliamentary system, which uses a dual format making it difficult for any one party to win alone . The result effectively ends the era of unstable coalition governments that have plagued the Himalayan nation since the end of the civil war .

Shah’s extraordinary journey from music stardom to the prime minister’s office began long before this week’s vote. Before 2013, the structural engineer by training was a complete unknown, but his sudden emergence on the music scene catapulted him to fame . His songs, including the iconic “Balidan,” took aim at corruption, inequality and political stagnation, with lyrics declaring: “All the leaders are thieves, plundering the country and devouring it” .

He studied MTech in Structural Engineering at Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology in Bengaluru between 2016 and 2018, where professors recall him as a “quiet and disciplined student” who scored above 9 CGPA while also writing and performing Nepali rap music .

In May 2022, Shah stunned Nepal’s political class by winning the Kathmandu mayoral election as an independent candidate . His tenure saw him tackle mountains of waste and improve schools, though his aggressive street-clearing campaigns drew criticism for their treatment of impoverished vendors .

The September 2025 youth uprising transformed Shah from popular mayor into national political leader. Protests erupted after the government imposed a social media ban, quickly escalating into widespread demonstrations against corruption, nepotism and poor governance . At least 77 people were killed when security forces opened fire on unarmed protesters .

The unrest forced Oli’s resignation and paved the way for Thursday’s election, the first since the uprising . Shah emerged as the figurehead of the Gen Z movement, giving voice to young Nepalis frustrated with an elite political class seen as out of touch and self-serving .

“The youth are no longer just ‘the future,’ they are the current decision-makers,” Nandan Yadav, an 18-year-old first-time voter, told the BBC .

The scale of the RSP’s victory has stunned even party officials. “A lot of people wanted change, but no one expected such a landslide,” said Subhash Sharma, a senior RSP official .

Traditional heavyweights have been decimated. The Nepali Congress has won just 17 seats, the CPN-UML eight, and the NCP seven . The RSP’s average candidate age is decades younger than that of the three main established parties .

Political analyst Chandra Dev Bhatta described the result as “a people’s revolt against the established political parties. The people understand that the new do not really have strong agendas, but it is a punishment to the parties for their decades-long poor governance” .

Despite the euphoria, significant hurdles await. While the RSP dominates the lower house, it holds no seats in the National Assembly, the upper house, meaning it will need to engage in precisely the kind of deal-making for which Shah has shown disdain .

Critics point to Shah’s mayoral record, where rights groups accused him of using police heavy-handedly against street vendors . His social media presence is often bellicose, and he has cursed India, China and the United States alongside Nepal’s political establishment . Last month, he told a rally that contractors obstructing road construction should be “tied to trees, locked in sheds, or made to lie in the road” .

The party itself faces potential internal fractures. Founder Rabi Lamichhane, a former talk show host, is embroiled in ongoing fraud cases . During the Gen Z protests, Lamichhane, who had been incarcerated, suddenly appeared on the streets before returning to prison days later .

The RSP’s election manifesto promises transformative change: creating 1.2 million jobs, reducing forced migration that pushes millions of Nepalis to work overseas, raising per capita income from $1,447 to $3,000 within five years, and more than doubling the economy to $100 billion GDP .

Whether such ambitions can be realised depends on Shah’s ability to translate popularity into governance. He has mostly shunned the press, avoiding public scrutiny of his record . After his victory, he flashed a V-for-victory sign but made no speech .

Oli, the veteran politician Shah defeated, offered gracious congratulations on social media. “Congratulations! Wish you a smooth and successful five-year tenure,” he wrote on X .

Final election results, including all proportional representation seats, are expected in the coming days . But the outcome is already clear: Nepal’s Gen Z revolution has delivered the youngest prime minister in the country’s history, and one who arrived there via an improbable journey from the recording studio to the Speaker’s chair.

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