Nepal’s general election on March 5 seeks political change

Nepal's March 5 election aims for political change, following youth protests demanding accountability and reform after recent turmoil.

Nepal will be voting in a landmark general election on Thursday (March 5, 2026), in what many see as a quest for political change. The polls follow last September’s youth-led movement against corruption, misgovernance, and a patronage-driven economy long associated with an ageing political class.

Around 19 million people are eligible to vote, including roughly one million newly registered voters — most of them young — in a country of about 30 million.

The election is being held two years ahead of schedule because of the two-day Gen Z protests during which 77 people lost their lives, including 19 who were killed in police firing on the first day of demonstrations on September 8.

The vote is viewed as a corrective measure — an opportunity to break Nepal’s cycle of revolving-door politics that has plagued the country for decades and to create conditions for implementing the demands of the youth movement.

Those demands — accountability, clean governance and economic reform — resonate well beyond the youth protesters and across the broader population.

Voters will elect a new House of Representatives.