RSP after Ilam

Congress and UML continue to be the mainstays of Nepali politics. They are still hard to challenge.

Even at the risk of excess generalisation, the resounding win of CPN-UML’s Suhang Nembang in Ilam-2 federal constituency and the concomitant failure of the Rastriya Swatantra Party candidate Milan Limbu is being endlessly analysed. Following its stellar showing in the 2022 general elections and the 2023 by-elections, many extrapolated a mighty electoral success for the RSP in the years ahead. In their reckoning, the party was expected to challenge the Nepali Congress and the UML, the two mainstays of post-1990 Nepali politics, in the national elections due in 2026. It still might. Yet the failure of its candidate in Ilam-2 to even recover his election deposit after failing to get at least 10 percent of valid votes suggests that the message of change the RSP champions has not quite percolated down to the grassroots. Perhaps some prospective voters were put off by the RSP chair Rabi Lamichhane’s untiring quest to get into the government and his involvement in various scams. Nor did it have the kind of robust party organisations the UML and the Congress do.