Despite suffering a huge loss in elections to the House of Representatives and Provincial Assemblies under the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, the Nepali Congress remained competitive in terms of the number of votes secured under the proportional representation (PR) system.

The NC secured 39,353 PR votes for federal parliament compared to CPN-UML’s 39,260 votes, according to the Election Commission update of results under the PR system until 8.30pm on Saturday. The CPN (Maoist Centre), a major partner of UML in the left alliance, secured 16,665 votes in the federal parliament. This, according to political analysts, could help the NC to make up for its losses under the FPTP system.

The elections to the provincial assemblies also follow the similar trend, with the NC leading the table with 35,772 PR votes. The UML secured 35,564 votes and the Maoist Centre had 16,435 votes, according to the EC.

This has reflected the mirror image of popular vote these parties had received in the local elections held over three phases in May, June and September.

“But matching the UML in PR votes alone might not be enough for the NC as long as the left alliance remains intact,” said Lokraj Baral, a political analyst.

“Madhes-based parties also have not performed exceptionally to secure enough seats who could maintain alliance with the NC to form a government.”

Baral, however, said that the history shows that the communist forces in Nepal do not stick together for long and with most of the top leaders from the UML and the Maoist Centre winning the elections, managing their ego could be a big challenge facing the left alliance.