After Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli was forced to resign due to a youth-led rebellion, Nepal is getting ready for crucial elections on March 5. With around 3,500 candidates running for 165 seats, the elections are viewed as a test of the country’s capacity to fight corruption and accept new leadership.
Voting in Nepal March 5: On Tuesday, nearly 3,500 candidates—including 391 women—submitted nominations for the 165 seats that will be up for grabs in the country’s next general elections, which will be held using a direct voting method.
The House of Representatives (HoR) election is scheduled for March 5 in the Himalayan nation. Last week marked the official start of Nepal’s political parties’ general election campaign.
A proportional voting system is used to elect 110 members, or 40%, of the 275 seats in the House of Representatives. 165 seats are up for election using the direct vote or First Past the Post (FPTP) method.
What made the elections necessary?
Following violent protests by the youth-led Gen Z group against his government over corruption and a social media prohibition, K P Sharma Oli resigned as prime minister on September 9 of last year, forcing the general elections.
Citing regulatory non-compliance, the KP Sharma Oli government abruptly banned 26 social media platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok, on September 4, 2025. The young people saw this as an obvious attempt to stifle criticism and reveal corruption in the administration, which had been making the rounds on the internet with hashtags like #NepoBaby.
Tens of thousands of youthful demonstrators, many dressed in school and college uniforms, marched on the Federal Parliament on September 8 and 9, 2025. Following the Prime Minister’s dismissal of the movement as a “staged drama” and the police response that resulted in scores of deaths, the once peaceful movement descended into violence. Eventually, a number of government buildings and the private homes of prominent political figures were set on fire by protesters.
Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli tendered his resignation. Following this, 73-year-old former chief justice Sushila Karki was named temporary prime minister to guide the 30 million-person Himalayan nation to elections. Through the web platform Discord, thousands of young activists initially suggested her name.
Following the voting for the 275-seat House of Representatives, which is the lower house of parliament and has 110 members chosen by party lists and 165 elected directly, Karki will resign.
In order to ascertain whether Nepal can overcome its history of corruption and welcome a new generation of leaders, the elections are viewed as a “credibility test” for the nation.
3,428 candidates and 18.9 lakh voters
Compared to the last parliamentary election in 2022, there are 18,903,689 eligible voters in total, including 915,119 newly registered voters.
Of the 275 members of the Lower House of Parliament, 110 are chosen using proportional voting, and 165 are chosen by direct voting or the first past the post (FPTP) method.
According to the commission, 3,428 candidates representing several political parties and independent candidates registered for the elections, including 3,037 men and 391 women.
Election Commission spokesperson Narayan Prasad Bhattarai stated last month that the commission is anticipated to release the final list of candidates today following the verification of the nomination papers and the resolution of any complaints.
Important players in the elections in Nepal
Since the conclusion of the ten-year civil war in 2006, experienced figures, many of whom were once Maoist guerrillas, have controlled Nepal’s political scene for decades.
The rebellion deposed 73-year-old KP Sharma Oli as prime minister, but he managed to garner enough support to win reelection as the head of the Communist Party of Nepal-UML (Unified Marxist Leninist).
The Nepal Communist Party, led by 71-year-old Pushpa Kamal Dahal, another former prime minister, has enlisted a number of other communist groups since the demonstrations.
The 79-year-old senior leader Sher Bahadur Deuba was sidelined in January when 49-year-old Gagan Thapa was elected as the new leader of the Nepali Congress, the nation’s oldest party and a member of the previous coalition government under Oli.
The Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), which capitalizes on public dissatisfaction with mainstream politics and nostalgia, maintains pockets of support for Gyanendra, 78, the king until his overthrow in 2008, ending 240 years of monarchy. Gyanendra now resides in Kathmandu.
Taking the old guard on
The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), led by 50-year-old television presenter Rabi Lamichhane, shocked onlookers in 2022 by rising to the fourth-largest force in parliament.
Lamichhane, a former home minister and deputy prime minister, has partnered with 35-year-old Balendra “Balen” Shah, a rapper and civil engineer with a sizable internet following, who was once the mayor of Kathmandu.
Shah is directly challenging Oli in his constituency as the alliance’s prime ministerial candidate.
Why are the elections in Nepal important to India?
Perhaps the most important elections to affect India-Nepal ties in decades are coming up in Nepal. Any tremor in Kathmandu is felt in New Delhi due to the two countries’ close cultural links and shared 1,751-kilometer open border.
For India, the September 2025 “Gen Z Uprising” was a security nightmare. India placed the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) on high alert after more than 15,000 inmates broke free and weapons were stolen from police armories during the pandemonium.
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