Sawt Falasteen - Nepal counts votes after key post-uprising election

Key figures vying for power include a Marxist former prime minister seeking a return to office, a rapper-turned-mayor bidding for the youth vote, and the newly elected leader of the powerful Nepali Congress party.

"Counting has begun in most places in a peaceful manner," Prakash Nyupane, a spokesman for the Election Commission, said Friday.

Some results are expected later Friday, but full nationwide tallies could take several days.

Even then, negotiations to form a government may drag on if -- as many analysts predict -- no single party secures an outright majority.

Sushila Karki, the interim prime minister, praised the peaceful conduct of a vote she has said was critical in "determining our future".

Voters have chosen who replaces the interim government in place since the September 2025 uprising, in which at least 77 people were killed, and parliament and scores of government buildings were torched.

Youth-led protests under a loose Gen Z banner began as a demonstration against a brief social media ban, but were fed by wider grievances at corruption and a woeful economy.

"Congratulations to the Nepali people for successfully conducting a historically peaceful election... thereby providing the country with a democratic and constitutional resolution," Karki said late Thursday after voting ended.

- 'Better path' -

The polls are one of the most hotly contested elections in the Himalayan republic of 30 million people since the end of a civil war in 2006.

The challenge that Karki -- a 73-year-old former chief justice who reluctantly left retirement to lead the nation -- now faces will be managing the reaction to results.

Thousands of soldiers and police have been deployed.

Many are watching results in the single constituency of Jhapa-5, a usually sleepy eastern district, where two key prime ministerial hopefuls went head-to-head.

KP Sharma Oli, the 74-year-old Marxist leader ousted as prime minister last year and seeking a return to power, was challenged by former Kathmandu mayor Balendra Shah, a 35-year-old rapper-turned-politician.

Shah, from the centrist Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), snappily dressed in a black suit and sunglasses, has cast himself as a symbol of youth-driven political change.

Also in the race as aspiring prime minister is Gagan Thapa, 49, the new head of the country's oldest party, Nepali Congress, who has said he wants to end the "old age" club of revolving veteran leaders.

More than 3,400 candidates ran for 165 seats in direct elections to the 275-member House of Representatives, the lower chamber of parliament, with 110 more chosen via party lists. Turnout was 59 percent.

Mira Ranjit, 49, who voted in the capital, Kathmandu, clapped as ballot boxes were collected under heavy guard and taken to counting centres late on Thursday.

"A new leader should emerge who can guide our country and show a better path for the nation, so that the Gen Z protest achieves its goal," she said.

J.AbuHassan--SF-PST