Political Earthquake: Three-Decade-Old Ruling Parties Displaced, RSP’s ‘Blue Wave’ Sweeps Nepal

Kathmandu : The House of Representatives election held on March 5 has completely altered Nepal’s political landscape. The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) has established unprecedented dominance by winning 125 out of 165 seats under the direct category. Such a powerful majority has never been seen before in the history of Nepal’s parliamentary elections. However, this result is not merely the victory of one party; it is also a document of the historic defeat of the established powers that have dominated the country’s politics for three decades.

Election statistics clearly narrate this story of victory and defeat. Looking at the party-wise representation in the direct elections of the last three elections (2017, 2022, and 2025), the seismic shift in Nepali politics is visible at a glance.

The 2017 election was dominated by CPN-UML and Maoist Centre. In 2022, a ‘colorful’ parliament emerged with no party having a clear majority. However, the 2025 results have presented a parliament filled predominantly with RSP’s ‘blue color’. The graphs of these three elections narrate the saga of Nepal’s political transformation in a single glimpse.

This change was not abrupt. The 2022 election had already laid its groundwork. In 2017, the number of seats won by Congress, UML, and Maoist Centre constituted about 85 percent of the directly elected seats. Those parties considered themselves ‘irreplaceable’, ran governments alternately, and remained engrossed in the game of forming and breaking alliances. Although no immediate major challenge was perceived from other parties, public trust towards the established parties had been steadily eroding.

As a result, in 2022, the number of directly elected seats won by those three parties dropped to about 70 percent, which was 15 percentage points lower than the previous election. The outcome of 2025 is even more astonishing. This time, their combined seat share has fallen to 21 percent. During that same period, RSP has expanded from a 5 percent presence to winning 76 percent of the seats.

Two lines trending in opposite directions – the decline of established powers on one side and the rise of a new force on the other – present the scene of the most dramatic power transfer through elections in Nepal’s political history.