Nepal polls: Rastriya Swatantra Party ahead in 102 seats, Balendra Shah leads ousted PM Oli

The newly-formed Rastriya Swatantra Party held a significant lead over other parties in Nepal as counting of votes in the general election was underway on Friday.

The three-year-old party was leading in 102 seats, according to reports.

It registered its first victory in the Kathmandu-1 seat, reported The Kathmandu Post. Party candidate Ranju Neupane defeated Nepali Congress’ Prabal Thapa by more than 9,000 votes.

The Nepali Congress had also secured one victory, clinching the Mustang-1 seat.

Rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah, who has been positioned as the Rastriya Swatantra Party’s prime ministerial candidate, was leading ousted Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, securing 6,551 votes in the Jhapa-5 seat. Oli had won 1,428 votes. Shah, 35, is the former mayor of Kathmandu.

Polling to elect 275 members of Parliament in the country took place on Thursday. A voter turnout of 58% was recorded.

Of the total, 165 seats will be decided through direct voting. The remaining will be allocated under the proportional representation system, with political parties nominating lawmakers based on the share of votes the parties get.

Election Commission officials had said declaring the final result could take ​a week, as ⁠counting of proportional representation votes would take some time.

This was the first general election in Nepal after the widespread protests in September that toppled the Oli government.

According to the counting trends on Friday, the Nepali Congress, which had put...

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