Nepal’s Gen Z revolt reaches the ballot box as Rastriya Swatantra wins landslide

A dramatic upset in Jhapa

In the eastern Nepali district of Jhapa, election workers upended plastic ballot boxes onto wooden school desks as young volunteers craned over piles of paper slips. As the count wore on late into the night of March 5, the result became unmistakable: former prime minister Khadga Prasad “KP” Sharma Oli— the veteran Marxist who dominated national politics for much of the past decade—was being routed in his own stronghold by a 35-year-old structural engineer and former rapper.

By dawn, Balendra “Balen” Shah was not only the giant-slayer of Jhapa-5. He was on course to become Nepal’s youngest prime minister, leading a four-year-old party that had just won the strongest parliamentary mandate in a generation.

Landslide victory after a snap election

The snap general election for Nepal’s 275-member House of Representatives, called for March 5 after deadly youth-led protests last year, delivered a decisive victory to the relatively new Rastriya Swatantra Party.

Official results from the Election Commission show the party securing 182 seats through a mix of first-past-the-post and proportional representation—just two short of the two-thirds majority needed to unilaterally amend the constitution.

The outcome marks a historic break with Nepal’s recent pattern of fragile coalition governments and entrenched party elites. It is widely seen as the political culmination of the “Gen Z” protests that erupted in September 2025 over a sweeping social media ban and long-standing anger at corruption, unemployment and dynastic politics.

“We have turned our grief and our rage into votes,” said 23-year-old student activist Sushmita Thapa, who joined demonstrations in Kathmandu last year and campaigned for Rastriya Swatantra this spring. “Those we lost in the protests did not get justice yet, but today we changed who holds power.”

Protests, a social media ban, and a political collapse

The protests that shook Kathmandu and several other cities began on Sept. 4, 2025, when the government led by Oli’s Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) ordered internet service providers to block 26 major social media platforms, including Facebook, X, YouTube and Instagram.

Officials said foreign tech companies had failed to register locally and obey a new regulatory law, but rights groups and civil society organizations warned the measure amounted to sweeping censorship aimed at silencing critics.

Within days, students and young professionals—many organized through offline networks and virtual private networks—filled the streets under the banner of the “Gen Z protests.” On Sept. 8 and 9, security forces opened fire on demonstrators near parliament and in central Kathmandu. Rights organizations reported that at least 17 to 20 people were killed and hundreds wounded.

Images of protesters storming the parliament complex, torching parts of the building and attacking the homes or offices of senior politicians—including Oli and leaders of the opposition Nepali Congress—stunned the country. The army briefly secured key state facilities, including the main international airport, as the crisis deepened.

Under intense domestic and international pressure, Oli resigned on Sept. 9. In a televised address, he said he was “deeply saddened by the tragic incident,” ordered an investigation and announced that the government would reconsider the social media restrictions. The ban was lifted soon afterward.

President Ram Chandra Paudel appointed former chief justice Sushila Karki as interim prime minister on Sept. 12 with a mandate to restore order, oversee inquiries into the violence and organize early elections by March 2026. Karki, widely regarded as an independent legal figure, led a caretaker administration under tight scrutiny from youth groups and opposition parties.

Rastriya Swatantra rides anti-establishment energy

As the country prepared for the polls, Rastriya Swatantra—founded in 2022 by former television journalist Rabi Lamichhane—emerged as the main vehicle for anti-establishment sentiment.

The party’s 2026 platform promised an aggressive crackdown on corruption, streamlined bureaucracy, expanded digital freedoms, job creation for young people and improved public services such as health care, education and urban infrastructure.

Lamichhane, who built his reputation hosting hard-hitting investigative programs, framed the contest as a choice between “the old syndicate of power” and “clean politics.” But it was Shah’s arrival as the party’s prime ministerial face that electrified the campaign.

Shah, an independent candidate who won the Kathmandu mayoralty in 2022, cultivated a large following among young urban voters through his music and social media presence, where he posted politically charged rap verses and criticism of corruption. During the 2025 protests, he publicly backed demonstrators and condemned the social media ban, posting that “a government that fears its own people’s voices has already lost its legitimacy.”

In January 2026, Shah resigned as mayor and formally joined Rastriya Swatantra, declaring that “the fight we started in the streets must now be carried into parliament.” He chose to run in Jhapa-5, Oli’s longtime constituency in eastern Nepal, setting up a high-profile generational and ideological clash.

A shattered old order

Campaigning in Jhapa and across the country, Rastriya Swatantra leaned heavily on young volunteers and digital outreach once platforms were restored. Videos of Shah’s rallies and short clips of his speeches circulated on TikTok and YouTube, while student networks mobilized first-time voters on campuses and in urban neighborhoods.

By contrast, the two established parties—the centrist Nepali Congress and Oli’s CPN-UML—struggled to shake perceptions of elite capture and fatigue. Analysts noted deep factional infighting within both organizations and frustration with years of unstable coalition governments since the adoption of Nepal’s federal democratic constitution in 2015.

When the votes were counted, the scale of the realignment stunned many in Kathmandu. Alongside Rastriya Swatantra’s 182 seats, Nepali Congress was reduced to 38 and CPN-UML to 25, its worst performance since it was founded in 1991. A handful of smaller parties and independents shared the remaining seats.

Voter turnout was about 60% of the nearly 18.9 million registered voters, the lowest rate for a parliamentary election since the early 1990s. Election officials and local observers said part of the decline reflected lower mobilization among traditional party loyalists, while participation among younger and unaffiliated voters appeared to have increased.

“This is not just a protest vote. It is a generational transfer of power,” said political scientist Meena Dhakal of Tribhuvan University. “For the first time in decades, a new party has a clear majority, but it is also untested. The expectations are enormous.”

Shah’s victory margin over Oli in Jhapa-5—68,348 votes to 18,734—set a new record for a single constituency. Oli conceded defeat but said in a brief statement that “temporary waves of anger do not erase our principles” and vowed that his party would “rebuild and continue to serve the people in opposition.”

Immediate pressure: justice, digital rights, the economy

Rastriya Swatantra’s majority allows it to form a government without formal coalition partners, though party leaders have signaled they may seek broader backing in parliament for key legislation and any constitutional amendments. Discussions are under way in Kathmandu over the composition of a “Balen cabinet,” with attention focused on how influence will be divided between Shah and Lamichhane.

The new government will face immediate pressure on several fronts. Human rights groups have called for independent investigations into the 2025 protest killings and accountability for excessive use of force by police. Digital rights advocates are urging the repeal or overhaul of the law that enabled the social media shutdown, warning against any return to broad online censorship.

“We expect the new leadership, whose rise is tied to those protests, to ensure that there is no repeat of such abuses and that victims’ families receive truth and justice,” said Anjana Bhatta, a lawyer with a Kathmandu-based rights organization.

Economically, the country remains heavily dependent on remittances from millions of Nepali workers abroad. Youth unemployment and underemployment are high, and tens of thousands of young people continue to leave each month for jobs in the Gulf states, Malaysia and beyond. Rastriya Swatantra has pledged to streamline business regulations, attract investment and create more opportunities at home, though it has provided few specifics on how quickly it can deliver.

Regional powers move to engage

Internationally, regional powers have moved quickly to engage the incoming administration. India’s Ministry of External Affairs said it looked forward to working with the new government “to further build on the robust multifaceted ties” between the two neighbors. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Lamichhane and Shah in a public message, calling India and Nepal “civilizational partners with historic and multi-dimensional relations.”

China, which has seen several of its promised Belt and Road Initiative projects in Nepal stall in recent years, has been more guarded in its public comments but is expected to seek early contact with the new leadership. Diplomats in Kathmandu say both India and China will watch closely how a youth-driven, nationalist-tinged government positions itself amid growing regional competition.

Symbolic firsts—and unanswered questions

The election also produced symbolic firsts inside Nepal. Among Rastriya Swatantra’s lawmakers is the country’s first openly transgender member of parliament, a development welcomed by LGBTQ+ groups. At the same time, activists from Madhesi, Janajati and Dalit communities have raised concerns about whether the new leadership will sufficiently represent and address the needs of historically marginalized regions and castes.

As results sank in, celebrations broke out in parts of Kathmandu and provincial cities where Gen Z protesters had clashed with riot police just six months earlier. Young supporters waved party flags and filmed live streams outside Rastriya Swatantra offices using the same platforms that had once been blocked nationwide.

“We did not pick up stones this time,” said Thapa. “We picked up ballots. Now we will see if those we chose keep their promises.”

For Nepal, the test begins now. A population that has endured a civil war, the end of monarchy, repeated constitutional battles and revolving-door coalitions has handed extraordinary authority to an untried party born of frustration with the old order. Whether that mandate leads to institutional reform, improved livelihoods and stronger protections for rights—or to fresh cycles of disappointment—will shape the country’s democracy for years to come.