Nepal's Election Commission announced on March 12 that the three-year-old Rastriya Swatantra Party, or RSP, won 182 of 275 parliamentary seats in the country's March 5 election, Nepal's first since popular anti-government protests helped oust the country's previous government in September 2025, Reuters reported on March 13. The landslide victory positions RSP candidate Balendra Shah, who served as Kathmandu's mayor from 2022 to early 2026, to become the country's next prime minister.

Vote counting had been underway for days in the aftermath of the March 5 election, with media reports suggesting RSP was poised for a landslide victory. While RSP was considered by many a popular choice in the run-up to the country's election, its particularly exceptional performance surpassed expectations. The establishment Nepali Congress and Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) won only 38 and 25 seats, respectively, demonstrating Nepalis' dissatisfaction with the political status quo.