IMAGE VIA TIKTOK
IN SEPTEMBER Nepal’s streets ran with blood and fire. Security forces fired live rounds into crowds of young protesters, killing 19 on the very first day. Mobs burned the homes of political leaders and the parliament building. The convulsion, sparked by anger over corruption and a ham-fisted social-media ban, ejected the prime minister and dissolved the legislature. Now, as the country prepares for an election on March 5th, that rage has crystallised around an unlikely figure: Balendra Shah, a 35-year-old former rapper and structural engineer who was until recently the mayor of Kathmandu. He is running for prime minister. He might just win.
The three-way contest for Nepal’s leadership is a striking generational tableau. On one side sits K.P. Sharma Oli, in his 70s, the four-time prime minister from the communist CPN-UML whose government ordered the lethal crackdown. His initial dismissal of a minister’s hit-and-run accident that helped spark the protests as “normal” reinforced an image of callous detachment. His campaign in his home constituency of Jhapa-5, which he has represented since 1991, is strangely subdued, hampered by age and health, some say. He has even mused about the election being postponed or rigged—the talk of a man anticipating defeat.
The establishment’s reformist flank is represented by Gagan Kumar Thapa, 49. In January he engineered a rupture within the Nepali Congress, the country’s oldest party, wresting control from the old guard led by Sher Bahadur Deuba. The Election Commission recognised his faction, granting him the party’s coveted tree symbol. Mr Thapa offers a bridge between youthful aspiration and political experience, a health minister turned insurgent. Yet his decade in parliament and rise through traditional structures may still taint him as part of the system that failed.
Then there is Balen, as everyone calls him. His journey from rhyming about graft to administering the capital always seemed more a cultural phenomenon than a political project. As mayor, he mixed technocratic drive—fixing roads and clearing garbage—with a bulldozer’s disregard for political niceties, forcibly evicting squatter settlements. The Gen Z protesters last September chanted his name for prime minister. He demurred then but has since embraced the role, joining the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) and becoming its prime-ministerial face. He has chosen to run directly against Mr Oli in Jhapa-5, a daring assault on the old order’s heartland.
Coalition maths will decide the outcome. Nepal’s mixed electoral system makes single-party majority nearly impossible. Mr Oli could seek a left-wing alliance with the newly merged communist parties. Mr Thapa’s Nepali Congress, though split, is still a formidable machine. Yet Balen’s RSP is a wild card. It won 20 seats in 2022 as a new anti-corruption outfit. It has since absorbed other minor parties along with prominent members from other leftist groups. A strong showing could make Balen a kingmaker, or even propel him to the top job if his momentum translates into seats.
The real change is in the rules of politics. Nepali politics for decades oscillated between communist and congress factions, defined by ideology and patronage. Balen embodies something else: a post-ideological, managerial pragmatism fused with outsider authenticity. His appeal comes more from a palpable rejection of the entire political class than from policy platforms. The September uprising was driven by a call for basic competence and accountability, not a new ideology. His candidacy is that demand personified.
Sceptics note that mayoral prowess does not equate to national governance, especially in a country squeezed between India and China. Coalition-building with the very parties he condemns would test his anti-system purity. And the fervour of protest movements tends to dissipate in the granular grind of voting day.
Yet the old calculus has been shattered. The protests caused an estimated $21bn in damage, half of Nepal’s annual GDP. They revealed a state willing to shoot its youth. The trust that underpins the political order evaporated. In this climate Balen Shah has become more than a candidate: he is a verdict. Win or lose Nepal’s politics will never be the same. ■
