By Our Reporter
For nearly two decades, communist parties shaped the direction of Nepal’s parliamentary politics. Their leaders dominated the prime minister’s office. Governments rose and fell around them. K P Sharma Oli served four terms as prime minister, Pushpa Kamal Dahal led three governments, and figures such as Madhav Kumar Nepal, Jhala Nath Khanal, and Baburam Bhattarai also held the top post. In many ways the state revolved around communist parties.
The results of the March 5, 2026 parliamentary election have left the communist camp stunned. Parties that once commanded wide ideological support suddenly find themselves pushed to the margins. For a long time, communist parties benefited from a strong ideological base. Elections after 2008 repeatedly showed that a large share of voters supported parties with a clear communist identity. When votes received by socialist parties led by former communist leaders were added, the support often approached two thirds of the electorate. That level of backing gave the communist camp enormous influence over national politics.
The proportional vote reveals how far the ground has shifted. The Rastriya Swatantra Party alone secured more than 5.18 million votes, about 47.84 percent of the total. Nepali Congress followed with around 1.76 million votes, roughly 16.24 percent. Only after these two parties does the first communist force appear. CPN UML placed third with 1.45 million votes, just over 13 percent. In direct contests the party managed only nine seats.
The loss is severe. Compared with the previous election, UML alone has lost more than 1.3 million proportional votes.
The situation looks even worse for the Prachanda-coordinated, newly formed Nepali Communist Party, which attempted to unite more than two dozen left groups after the Gen Z uprising. The idea was simple. Bring together fragments of the left, revive the movement, and recover lost ground. Instead the alliance failed to inspire voters. The party received about 811,000 votes, or just 7.49 percent of the total.
When all communist parties are counted together, the picture becomes clearer. Eight parties with explicit communist identities contested the election. Combined they received about 2.37 million votes. That equals only 21.95 percent of the total vote. In Nepal’s recent political history, such a low share for communist parties is unprecedented.
Smaller communist groups, Nepal Workers and Peasants Party, Rastriya Janamorcha, and several other factions together gathered only a few thousand votes each. This decline also shows up in parliament. Out of 275 seats in the House of Representatives, communist parties will hold only 42 seats. UML will have 25 lawmakers while the new Nepal Communist Party will have 17. Together they account for just over 15 percent of the chamber. That number stands in sharp contrast to the past.
The contrast becomes even sharper when one looks back at earlier elections. In the first Constituent Assembly election in 2008, communist parties dominated the ideological vote. They secured more than 57 percent of proportional ballots. Maoists alone captured over 3.1 million votes, while UML followed with more than 2.1 million. In the 601-member assembly, communist lawmakers numbered 368. They controlled more than sixty percent of the chamber.
That election marked the high point of communist influence in Nepal’s parliamentary history.
The decline started soon after. In the second Constituent Assembly election in 2013, support for communist parties dropped to about 43 percent. Internal disputes and confusion over the constitutional process weakened their image. Even then the communist camp still held significant influence in parliament.
The next major moment came in 2017. UML and the Maoist Centre formed an electoral alliance and promised party unification. The strategy worked. Together they secured nearly half of the proportional vote and dominated the direct seats. But that victory carried the seeds of decline.
Instead of using their strong mandate to strengthen governance, communist leaders quickly fell into disputes. Personal rivalries, factional battles, and leadership struggles broke the alliance apart.
By the 2022 election the damage was already visible. The communist vote had slipped to around 42 percent. Even then many leaders dismissed the decline as temporary. The 2026 election has proved otherwise.
What once looked like a solid ideological base has fractured. The left that once dominated the political landscape now struggles to maintain relevance. Voters appear less interested in old ideological labels and more impatient with parties trapped in internal conflicts. For communist leaders the message is uncomfortable but clear. Dominance built over two decades can vanish quickly when parties lose public trust.
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