Lamichhane wins big as RSP sweeps Nepal elections

Kathmandu, March 7 (IANS) Rabi Lamichhane, President of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), has been elected to Nepal’s House of Representatives from Chitwan Constituency-2 by a huge margin, as his relatively new party secures a majority of wins and leads across the country in this year’s parliamentary elections.

Lamichhane secured the victory with 54,402 votes, while his closest competitor, Meena Kharel of the Nepali Congress, received 14,564 votes.

It is the third time the former media personality-turned-politician has won from the same constituency, as his party has turned Chitwan into a stronghold over the past three years.

Lamichhane was first elected to the lower house from the same constituency in the 2022 parliamentary elections. However, he later lost his lawmaker status after the Supreme Court of Nepal declared his citizenship certificate invalid.

On January 27, 2023, the court stripped Lamichhane of his parliamentary seat, ruling that he had used his old invalid citizenship to contest the election without reapplying for a new one after renouncing his U.S. citizenship. Following the verdict, Lamichhane lost his position as a lawmaker, his role as Home Minister, and his party presidency.

In the April 2023 bye-elections, he returned to the race and was re-elected to the House with an even larger vote share.

Over the past three years, Lamichhane has also faced controversy over alleged fraud involving cooperative institutions, before he entered politics in 2022. Until a few months ago, he was in custody and was released by a court order shortly before the March 5 elections.

His alliance with former rapper-turned-politician Balen Shah — who is leading the race against former Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli in Jhapa-5 in eastern Nepal — has proved to be a masterstroke. The RSP has already won 20 seats and is leading in 95 constituencies out of the 165 seats contested under the First-Past-the-Post system.

Traditional political parties, including the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) (CPN-UML), are trailing far behind the RSP in the ongoing vote count.

–IANS