A new dawn or another illusion? |
The election in Nepal last week was not merely a political exercise; it was an eruption of pent-up fury, a rejection of the old guard that had throttled any semblance of progress for decades. But what now stares back at the country is a stark question: have the people truly changed their future, or simply traded one set of illusions for another?
For years, Nepalis endured the same trio of power brokers-the Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML, and the so-called Communist Party-as these entities pirouetted through government halls, recycled leadership, and maintained an endless cycle of impressive promises and microscopic delivery. Institutions decayed, corruption metastasised, and unemployment worsened further. Youth unemployment stands north of 20 per cent-more than double the national average. Around 1,500 young Nepalis leave their homeland every single day seeking work abroad, a staggering exodus that undermines any future the country might hope to sculpt for itself.
So, when the uprising erupted, when Gen Z and youth frustration boiled over into the streets, it was not just rage-it was despair. Into this void surged Balendra Shah, the rapper-turned-Kathmandu mayor better known as Balen. He became the face of something many claimed they wanted: a break with the past. The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), a party as new as its leader’s rise from outside the entrenched political class, swept to an unprecedented majority: 125 of the 165 first-past-the-post seats. A single party holding nearly two-thirds control in Nepal is almost unheard of, a brutal indictment of the old establishment’s collapse.
Nepal’s new leadership inherited not opportunity but catastrophe. The........