Polling centres were set up yesterday for one of its most hotly contested elections since the end of civil war in 2006, six months after deadly anti-corruption protests toppled the government.
The Himalayan republic will elect a new parliament today, replacing the interim government that has led the country of 30 million people since the Sept 2025 uprising in which at least 77 people were killed.
In the heart of the capital, at Kathmandu’s Durbar Square election officials were erecting polling booths set to open soon after dawn today.
Helicopters have flown voter materials to snowbound mountain regions across Nepal.
Sushila Karki, the interim prime minister, has urged people to vote “without any fear”.
KP Sharma Oli, the 74-year-old Marxist leader ousted as prime minister last year and seeking a return to power, is being challenged in his home constituency by former Kathmandu mayor Balendra Shah, a 35-year-old rapper-turned-politician.
While nearly 19 million voters are registered nationwide, the Jhapa-5 constituency, with some 163,000 voters, will determine whether Oli secures his seat or whether Shah enters parliament.
Shah, from the centrist Rastriya Swatantra Party, has cast himself as a symbol of youth-driven political change, encouraging voters to “ring the bell” of change, in reference to the party symbol.
Also in the race as aspiring prime minister is Gagan Thapa, 49, the new head of the country’s oldest party, Nepali Congress, who said he wanted to end the “old age” club of revolving veteran leaders.
Thapa is running in the Sarlahi constituency, a mainly farming district bordering India.
More than half of Nepal’s population lives in the rural plains of Nepal’s southern Madesh district in the lush “terai” grasslands fed by Himalayan snowmelt. — AFP
