ELECTIONS IN NEPAL
March 2026
Editos/Fondemos’ view
FONDEMOS’ VIEW
Today, 5 March 2026, voters across Nepal are going to the polls to elect the 275 members of the House of Representatives, in a political context still strongly shaped by the wave of protests that spread across the country in September 2025.
These protests erupted after the government blocked digital platforms, a move widely perceived as an act of censorship. The movement quickly grew, bringing together young people and other social groups around demands related to corruption, nepotism and a broader sense of injustice.
Demonstrations around the Parliament in Kathmandu spread to several other cities. According to official figures, the crackdown left 77 people dead and more than 2,000 injured. On 9 September 2025, Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli eventually resigned.
The period that followed opened an institutional transition. Former Chief Justice Sushila Karki was appointed interim Prime Minister. Parliament was dissolved on 13 September and early elections were called for 5 March 2026. The interim government then launched several initiatives, including an anti-corruption campaign and new transparency measures, in response to the protesters’ demands. The Election Commission also tightened the rules governing political spending and donations.
This election is also notable for the arrival of 915,000 first-time voters, out of a total of 8.9 million registered voters. Their presence among the candidates remains limited, but their mobilisation in September helped place the fight against corruption at the centre of political debate. These new voters have influenced discussions without fundamentally reshaping the balance between political parties.
While the 5 March elections alone will not resolve the structural weaknesses of Nepal’s political system, they mark an important step: the transition from a cycle of protest to an institutional phase. The ability of the institutions to absorb this transition will help measure the resilience of the constitutional framework that was tested last autumn.
