Rapper-turned-politician Balen Shah’s RSP heads for poll landslide in Nepal

Shah’s party represents a reformist wave reshaping the Himalayan nation’s politics since last year’s youth-led uprising.

Nepal’s centrist Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) of rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah has secured a majority in the direct parliamentary elections and is heading for a landslide, according to official results and election commission trends.

The 35-year-old’s RSP party was also leading in proportional representation vote, according to results declared until early Sunday, in the country’s first election since last year’s youth-led uprising which toppled the government.

Elections on Thursday chose a new 275-member House of Representatives, the lower house of parliament, with 165 seats chosen directly, and 110 by a proportional representation vote.

Shah’s RSP has already won nearly 100 of 165 directly elected seats and is leading in over a dozen other constituencies in the results published by Nepal’s Election Commission early on Sunday.

Shah, widely known simply as “Balen”, himself on Saturday defeated the veteran four-time Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli – whose Marxist-led government was ousted in the protests last year – in his own seat in a southeastern district, securing almost four times as many votes as Oli.