Fresh Mandate

RSP (Rastriya Swatantra Party) has emerged victorious in the general elections in Nepal that took place on March 5, 2026. The main attraction for voters turned out to be engineer and rapper Balen Shah who served as the Mayor of Kathmandu from 2022 to 2026. When once asked why he was the people’s favourite, he candidly answered that unlike other prominent politicians of Nepal, he believed in his work speaking for himself. And work he did successfully as Kathmandu’s Mayor. Now that people have spoken, RSP will be heading the Nepal government helmed by Balen as the next Prime Minister of Nepal.

In the March 5th election, the voter turnout was 60 per cent and the majority of the votes went to RSP candidates, leading to a landslide victory. Major politicians of established parties such as the Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML lost devastatingly. How did this happen? How did such parties that have long run the nation lose at the hands of a relatively new party? To answer this, one has to look back at the September 8 and 9 protest of 2025. The protest led by Gen Z showed how simmering anger had been building up among Nepalis. Not only did the protest topple the KP Sharma Oli-led government, it also led to an interim government with Sushila Karki as the PM. As pledged elections loomed, RSP alongside Balen gained stride. 

It didn’t help that just before the elections, the BBC released a documentary about the Gen Z protests titled, Shot Like Enemies: Inside Nepal’s Gen Z Uprising. The documentary, backed by voice records and documents, posed the question: Who authorised the firing of bullets on the protestors? Compiled with the help of countless social media posts during the protests, the documentary didn’t put the previous government led by Oli in a good light. And the timing of the documentary couldn’t be more coincidental, as it arrived a few days before the elections. 

RSP leader, Rabi Lamichhane, made a calculated and quite momentous move by appointing Balen to his party, even pledging the Prime Ministerial position to him. Even during the Gen Z protests, Balen was the popular choice as Nepali youths discussed the nation’s future on Discord. But Balen made the strategic decision to contest the elections, stepping down as the Mayor of Kathmandu. His popularity among the youths has been off the charts. Is it because he is a young millennial, a new face in Nepali politics? Is it the fact that he happens to be an engineer and a rapper? Could his rebellious influence as a rapper have cemented him as a resounding activist voice of Nepal? 

One could say that he was a celebrity long before becoming a politician. Nepalis were taken by surprise when he contested the position of the Mayor of Kathmandu as an independent candidate and won. In a way, he took over the mike from rapping to giving political speeches, winning over the youths of Nepal. It is the way of the world-the old gives way to the new but not without a fight. If the older generations of traditional parties weren’t shocked by the Gen Z revolt, they are certainly now, leaving Balen to prove his mettle as the new PM.