The May 13 local elections were a bit of an upset for the CPN-UML, relegating the party to a distant second spot behind the ruling Nepali Congress (NC). It took an electoral alliance of five parties—Congress, CPN (Maoist Center), CPN (Unified Socialist), Janata Samajbadi Party Nepal, and Rastriya Janamorcha Party—to cut the UML down to size.
Nepali Congress won 329 (43.8 percent) local unit chief seats (chairperson/mayor) while UML had to contend with 205 seats (27.3 percent). The Maoist Center came out third with 121 seats (16.1 percent).
The UML, which had won 294 top seats in the 2017 elections, lost 89 seats. This defeat largely owed to a split in the party—with the Madhav Nepal faction forming the Unified Socialist in August 2021—and the five-party electoral alliance.
Though the Congress has won most number of local unit chief seats, the UML still got the highest number of combined votes cast for seven different posts (mayor/chairperson, deputy mayor/ vice-chairperson, ward chairperson, women member, Dalit women member, and two open members). A total of 75.8m votes were cast for all seven posts, and the UML garnered 25.8m of them. This was 34.13 percent of the total votes.
This number could vary as the Election Commission has not published the detailed data of Triyuga Municipality, Udayapur district, while a re-election was also held in Budiganga Municipality, Bajura district.
The UML had received 21.4m votes in all the seven posts in the 2017 election. The total number of voters this time was 3.66m more than in the previous election.
Overall, the NC received 847,994 fewer votes than the UML this time.
The Congress candidate for all the seven posts got 25m (33 percent) of the total votes. The party had received 28.74m votes in 2017.
The Maoist party increased its seat numbers this time, but their vote count fell by 1.8m. The party received 10.1m (13.65 percent) of the total votes this time.
According to the Election Commission, out of 17.7m voters, 12.1m (68.7 percent) cast their votes this time, of which about 1.3m votes were invalid.
The results were expected
Meena Poudel
Political analyst
It was obvious that the Nepali Congress would do better in this election, and nobody has gained more from the coalition than Congress. The split of the then Nepal Communist Party (NCP) and the CPN-UML also helped.
The split in the UML and the party’s poor leadership at the local level in its previous tenure also contributed to the loss.
Also, the gung-ho attitude of UML Chairman KP Oli also cost the party many neutral voters.
But remember that the organizational strength of the UML remains formidable, as was indicated by the party getting more votes than any of the other parties.
As for the Maoist Center, the five-party coalition, as well as Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s role in national politics, won the party a few extra seats.
When the previous government led by the UML’s Oli dissolved the House of Representatives, Dahal played a cooperative role in protecting democracy.
This narrative has also helped the Maoist party. Whether we like him or not, he has been a kingmaker.
