KATHMANDU, March 10: With vote counting under the First Past the Post (FPTP) system nearly complete and Proportional Representation (PR) results expected by Wednesday morning, Nepalis are eagerly asking: when will the new government take shape?
The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), which earlier declared senior leader Balen Shah as its prime ministerial candidate, has emerged as the clear frontrunner in the March 5 House of Representatives election, raising public anticipation for a government led by the rapper-turned politician.
The RSP has secured victory in 125 of the 165 constituencies under the FPTP system. The Nepali Congress (NC) follows with 18 seats, while the CPN-UML has nine.
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Other parties have won fewer seats with the Nepali Communist Party (NCP) securing seven seats, Shram Sanskriti Party three, and one seat each by the Rastriya Prajantantra Party (RPP) and an independent candidate.
Under the PR system, the RSP has collected over 5 million votes, followed by NC with more than 1.7 million, UML with over 1.4 million, NCP with more than 787,000, and Shram Sanskriti Party with over 370,000 votes as of Tuesday evening.
With the RSP emerging dominant, the next question is the timeline for forming the Balen government. According to the EC, FPTP vote counting has already concluded. Traditionally, the EC requires two additional days to allocate PR seats, likely by March 12.
The process then involves deducting the 3% threshold from total valid votes, determining each party’s entitled seats, assigning inclusive clusters, and selecting winning candidates from the closed lists. This is expected to take around three days, until March 16. After verifying party submissions and candidate lists, the EC generally needs another 2–3 days (earliest by March 19) to formally announce the winners, issue certificates, and prepare the overall report.
Once complete, the EC submits the final report—including names of winners from both FPTP and PR—to the President. The President can then appoint the leader of the majority party in the House of Representatives as Prime Minister. Prior to this, the majority party elects its parliamentary leader according to the Constitution and the Political Parties Act.
If this timeline holds, experts suggest the new government under Balen Shah could be formally formed between March 24 and 26, marking the start of a new chapter in Nepali politics.
