As Nepal’s new government, led by Balendra Shah, a 35-year-old former Mayor of Kathmandu, completed its first 100 days in office, two incidents within 48 hours laid bare the widening gap between its promises of reform and the realities of governance.

On July 9, a ride-hailing driver self-immolated following an altercation with the city police over a parking dispute. The 25-year-old died the following day while undergoing treatment. A day later, a holding centre sheltering squatters and landless people after their eviction from Kathmandu’s riversides was inundated by monsoon rains.

The incidents have fuelled public anger against the majority government, with protests flaring up in Kathmandu and elsewhere. Critics say they expose administrative failures, poor planning and an increasingly high-handed style of governance.

The Shah administration now finds itself confronting many of the same questions that dogged its predecessor before last year’s Gen Z protests, which ultimately swept Mr. Shah into office.

Formed on March 27 after the Rastriya Swatantra Party’s landslide victory in the March 5 elections, triggered by last year’s youth uprising, the government came to power promising reform, accountability and good governance. But analysts say it has failed to deliver on those promises.

Anurag Acharya, a political commentator, said the administration is increasingly mirroring the erstwhile KP Sharma Oli government, arguing that Prime Minister Shah has exhibited similar authoritarian tendencies.

“This government’s disconnect with the public is stark,” Mr. Acharya said. “While its performance on all fronts has been dismal, it is targeting critics, the media and civil society. Early signs are not good.”

The criticism has been amplified by Mr. Shah’s public silence. Known for his one-way communication style since his days as Kathmandu mayor — largely through social media — he has made just one public address and delivered only one speech in Parliament during his first 100 days in office.

Mr. Shah has remained silent on both issues that have triggered public anger—the death of the ride-hailing driver and the plight of evicted squatters.

On Tuesday (July 14), Opposition lawmakers accused the government of failing in its fundamental responsibility to protect the vulnerable and the excluded. Niscal Rai, whip of the main Opposition Nepali Congress, referred to Prime Minister Shah as “Shri 8” — an allusion to the honorific “Shri 5”, once reserved for Nepal’s monarchs before the country became a federal republic — suggesting a growing intolerance towards criticism, dissent and scrutiny.

What began as criticism of the government’s handling of two recent crises has increasingly widened into concerns over shrinking civic space, with activists, Opposition leaders and the media alleging intimidation and suppression of dissent.

On July 11, police arrested youth activists after they called attention to the government’s mishandling of evicted landless families. Majid Ansari, a lawyer and Gen Z activist, was injured during the police action and is undergoing treatment.

In a Facebook post from his hospital bed, he wrote: “I have not been informed about the reason for my arrest so far, nor have I been shown any arrest warrant. There is no clarity about the legal status of my arrest either.”

Amnesty International has called for his immediate and unconditional release.

“This arbitrary detention of activists simply for expressing solidarity with victims of forced eviction has raised serious concerns over violations of the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, liberty and security of person, signalling an alarming threat to civic space in Nepal,” said Nirajan Thapaliya, Director of Amnesty International Nepal.

“The majority of the Ministers in the current government came to power on the back of Gen Z protests in September 2025. They vehemently advocated for the right to protest and freedom of expression, and against police repression while pledging to hold law enforcement accountable for the crackdown during the September protests. It’s deplorable that within four months of taking office, the government is now forgetting its commitment and is using the same repressive tactics as its predecessor to unlawfully target young activists peacefully expressing their dissent.”

Concerns over shrinking civic space deepened further on July 13 after unattended vehicles were left outside the gates of three leading media houses in Kathmandu. One of the vehicles was parked outside the gates of Kantipur Media Group, the country’s largest media company, blocking the entry and exit of other vehicles. It was later found to belong to a member of the ruling Rastriya Swatantra Party.

Parliamentarians on Tuesday (July 14) took up the issue, describing the incidents of unattended vehicles blocking media houses as an attempt to silence criticism.

Ramesh Malla of the Nepali Communist Party alleged that such acts were carried out by people backed by the state.

“If those in positions of power have understood that they can govern by creating an environment of fear, they are completely wrong,” he said in Parliament on Tuesday. “Those who gave the mandate to govern could launch a big movement to take the mandate back.”

Concerns over the government’s commitment to democratic norms were evident from the early days. Yet, it continued to get the benefit of the doubt because the public, frustrated with years of misgovernance and corruption, had placed its trust in the new administration.

Last year’s Gen Z protests were sparked by the Oli government’s sudden decision to ban social media. The movement, however, soon evolved into a broader demand for accountability, good governance and better public service delivery.

For a government that rode a wave of public anger against the old political order and promised a decisive break from it, the first 100 days have instead been marked by allegations of administrative failures, shrinking civic space and an increasingly confrontational approach to criticism. The questions that helped bring Mr. Shah to power are now being asked of his own administration.

“There is an utter disregard for checks and balances,” said Mr. Acharya. “There’s neither governance nor any respect for democratic norms. It’s like out of the frying pan into the fire.”

Published – July 14, 2026 04:59 pm IST

Nepal is set to have the weakest Opposition it has seen in recent history.

The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) swept the March 5 elections, securing 182 seats in the 275-member Parliament, just two short of a two-thirds majority. Established parties such as the Nepali Congress (NC) and the CPN-UML, which have dominated Nepali politics since 1990, have been reduced to 38 and 25 seats, respectively.

The unprecedented mandate gives the RSP an opportunity to push legislation through and take decisions without significant hindrance. Analysts, however, caution that such a lopsided Parliament carries risks.

Chandrakishore, a political commentator, says parliamentary deliberations are a cornerstone of democracy, and it is in Parliament that the government of the day is held accountable.

“With a weak Opposition, the government may act waywardly and take wilful decisions,” he said. “This could test democratic norms.”

Ballot counting is over in Nepal after the March 5 election—the first the country has held since the Gen Z protests of September last year—and the electorate has delivered a massive mandate to the RSP, a party barely four years old.

While this mandate puts pressure on the RSP, with Balendra Shah — known as a disruptor eager for quick action and poised to become Prime Minister — in a central role to deliver decisively, analysts warn that if the government focuses excessively on speed, it could undermine the very institutional framework that enabled this victory.

The new Parliament is set to have six parties: the ruling RSP, the main opposition Nepali Congress, and the UML. The other three parties are the Nepali Communist Party (17 seats), the Shram Shakti Party (7), and the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (5). One member has been elected as an independent.

Observers note the irony that the same parties which fostered a culture of Opposition-less governance in Nepal have now been relegated to a weak Opposition.

In 2022, the NC emerged as the single largest party under an alliance with the Maoists, while the UML finished second. Maoist chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal, however, joined forces with UML leader KP Sharma Oli to become Prime Minister. When the vote of confidence came up, the NC supported Dahal, effectively giving his government close to a two-thirds majority. Parliament was left with no meaningful Opposition — a role the NC could have played.

In 2024, the NC and UML joined hands to unseat Dahal and form a government. Critics called the move unparliamentary, as the two largest parties ended up leading the government together, leaving the Maoists and smaller parties as a weak Opposition.

“The culture of Opposition-less governance established then has now become a reality — it was engineered by the old parties, but today it comes by electoral mandate,” said Rajendra Dahal, a journalist who has extensively covered Nepal’s parliamentary politics.

He added that concerns about democratic accountability could grow if other institutions fail to perform their role. “The concern now is what if the mainstream media fails to play its role at a time when civil society seems to be non-existent,” he said. “That will leave social media to help keep the government in check.”

With many long-serving leaders from the NC and the UML routed in the election, only a handful of experienced leaders from these parties are headed to Parliament. It remains unclear who will represent these parties — along with other opposition groups — under the proportional representation system.

Nepal elects 165 members to the House directly and 110 through proportional representation.

The youth-led protests last year demanded an end to corruption and the establishment of good governance. As many as 77 people lost their lives during the demonstrations, including 19 killed in police firing on September 8.

The call for change — and the growing belief that meaningful reform was impossible under the old guard — became so strong in the run-up to the election that the established parties and their prominent leaders faced an unprecedented drubbing.

Among those defeated were KP Sharma Oli, former Prime Minister and UML chair, and Gagan Thapa, a prominent leader of the Nepali Congress, along with heads of several other traditional parties. Pushpa Kamal Dahal, a former Maoist leader who now heads the Nepali Communist Party, is the only former Prime Minister to have survived the RSP wave.

Madhesh-based regional parties have also been decimated, leaving them with no representation in Parliament.

Yet another paradox the post-vote politics has produced is that for years, Nepalis had been seeking a stable government that could complete its full term; now that such a government appears likely, questions about accountability and democratic norms have begun to surface.

“The vigilance that Parliament should maintain may have to be maintained from the streets,” Mr. Chandrakishore said. “If decisions are not grounded in institutions, the democratic system will be strained.”

Some analysts believe the role of the Opposition should be measured not just by numbers, but by the moral authority they can exercise. 

Rajendra Phuyal, former secretary of the National Assembly, says the current Opposition, with new faces free of old baggage, may question the governing party with greater courage and moral strength.

“We need not see the Opposition numerically only; how effectively those on the other side of the aisle can play their role is more important,” he said.

Published – March 11, 2026 06:05 pm IST

Political parties in Nepal have launched campaigns for the March 5 parliamentary elections, necessitated by last September’s Gen Z protests.

The Nepali Congress, the country’s oldest party, kicked off its campaign rally from Janakpur in Madhesh, a province bordering India, on February 18, as it seeks to reclaim its clout in the region. The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), a relatively new force in Nepal that rose from the 2022 elections, organised its election gathering in Dhangadhi, a city in Nepal’s far-western region.

Various other parties have scheduled their programmes, with the vote just two weeks away.

The coming elections are seen as a litmus test for Nepal’s traditional parties, which have drawn scorn from various quarters for their failures, despite ruling the country for the last three decades. Change is the common refrain among voters, but there is little clarity as to what exactly that means, except for one apparent issue that stands out — there is palpable frustration with the old parties.

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Tanka Lama, from Ramechhap, a district around 150 km east of Kathmandu, says it’s time Nepalis voted for a party other than the Nepali Congress or the Communist Party of Nepal-UML. “I had plans to vote for the RSP, but since Balendra Shah has joined the party as its PM candidate, I have changed my mind,” said Mr. Lama, 25, who drives a taxi in Kathmandu. “I will probably vote for Ujyalo [Nepal Party].”

The RSP was formed just six months before the 2022 elections by former TV host Rabi Lamichhane. Riding on the wave of widespread discontent against Nepal’s traditional parties, it emerged as the fourth-largest force. Mr. Lamichhane is a controversial figure, facing charges of embezzling cooperative funds, while Mr. Shah, who resigned as Kathmandu’s mayor, remains a Marmite figure.

Bet on the bell

Nityanand, an analyst based in Janakpur, says voters do not seem to care much about Mr. Lamichhane or Mr. Shah; the wave is such that everyone says “ghanti,” or the bell, the election symbol of the RSP. “The RSP wave is unprecedented. It’s a different matter whether the street emotions will materialise into actual votes,” he said.

Apart from the RSP, other new forces are also emerging. The Ujyalo Nepal Party came into being only recently, launched by Kulmang Ghising, a former technocrat credited with ending Nepal’s hours-long power outages.

As many as 68 parties are contesting the March 5 polls, with more than 3,000 candidates running for the 275-member House of Representatives. In Nepal, 165 members are elected under the directly elected first-past-the-post system, while 110 are elected under the proportional representation (PR) system. This mixed system makes it extremely difficult for any party to secure a majority.

The question many are asking this time is who will emerge as the biggest party. Though the street wave leans towards the RSP, it is a force with a weaker organisational structure compared to parties like the Nepali Congress or the CPN-UML. The Maoist party, led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who led the 10-year-long insurgency from 1996 to 2006, has now transformed into the Nepali Communist Party. Mr. Dahal, a two-time Prime Minister, has moved to Rukum — a Maoist stronghold during the insurgency — in search of a safe constituency, an indication of how the party’s appeal has waned over the years.

Until 2022, Nepal’s electoral trend showed little to no swing votes, with the Congress and the UML usually standing out. In 2008, the Maoist party, which had just emerged from the war, stunned many as it became the single largest party. But in elections after the 2015 constitution, the Congress and the UML have led. That pattern was disrupted in 2022 with the emergence of the RSP.

When the Gen Z protests happened in September 2025, which left 77 dead, the UML’s K.P. Sharma Oli was the Prime Minister with the backing of the Congress. Dissatisfaction with these parties had already been simmering, as the protests called for an end to a status quo entrenched by the old guard that many believed was promoting corruption and mis-governance. Many also hold the two parties responsible for the protest deaths.

Mr. Oli resigned on September 9. President Ram Chandra Poudel, on September 12, formed an interim government led by Sushila Karki, a former Chief Justice. The interim administration dissolved the House and called elections for March 5.

As many as 19 million people, out of Nepal’s 30 million population, are eligible to vote, with around one million voters — mostly youth — added to the rolls after the protests.

Mr. Lama, the taxi driver, says voting out old parties does not necessarily mean everything will change and improve in the country, but since the Gen Z protests demanded change, the country must see a shift. “I know even if the RSP wins, it cannot form a government alone,” he said. “But the point is we have already seen other parties, let’s give a new party a chance.”

Published – February 21, 2026 11:55 pm IST