Why Nepal Keeps Changing Prime Ministers | Can Balen Shah Keep Gen Z on His Side? | Spotlight | N18G

[00:00:00]Nepal won its battle for democracy about two decades ago, but the nation is still searching for political stability. Here is our spotlight.

[00:00:13]>> This was Nepal's first dawn of peace after a decades-long civil war.

[00:00:22]But peace did not bring political stability. Instead, it ushered an era of government collapses and corruption scandals.

[00:00:34]Nearly two decades later, a new generation took to the streets.

[00:00:38]This time, the fight was not against any king.

[00:00:42]They were fighting a political class they believed had failed them.

[00:00:47]Their movement produced a new prime minister.

[00:00:51]But even he, too, is facing the same public anger, bringing us to the same question that has haunted Nepal since 2006.

[00:01:04]>> In 2006, Nepal stood at a crossroads. A bloody civil war had ended. A monarchy that had ruled for more than two centuries was on its way out, and millions of Nepalese believed they were about to build a new democracy. But two decades later, that promise remains elusive. Since becoming a republic, Nepal has had 14 governments in just 17 years. And now, less than 4 months after sweeping to power, Prime Minister Balendra Shah is already facing his first major political crisis.

[00:01:35]Listen in to some of the voices from the ground.

[00:01:38]>> Overall, Nepal has a large population of common citizens and working-class people. Until their voices are heard and included, their demands and issues, including those of Dalits, women, marginalized, and indigenous communities, as well as squatters, we cannot say the Nepal government has performed well.

[00:01:57]Nepal can only be prosperous if the Prime Minister implements his words of speech, which he spoke before the election during the campaign, when he showed sweet dreams of Karnali, far west, remotest part of Nepal, telling that people of Karnali are our people, and he had assured that he'll be the voices of the voiceless.

[00:02:17]>> The current skepticism in the government is linked to the death of a 25-year-old delivery rider. His death has sparked fresh protests and raised a question that has haunted Nepal for nearly two decades. Is the problem the leaders or the system itself? Not one government in Nepal has completed its full 5-year term. Prime Ministers have come and gone and coalitions have collapsed. Parties have split and every election has been sold as a new beginning until the next government falls.

[00:02:47]And that keeps these systemic challenges largely unresolved in this small Himalayan nation.

[00:02:54]>> Challenges for new government. Internal factors, such as limited resources, create significant challenges. In addition, the new government must address the high expectations of the people. Many laws are unclear and scattered, requiring proper management.

[00:03:07]Furthermore, there is a need to strengthen institutional capacity and enhance both work effort and efficiency within the bureaucracy.

[00:03:15]>> For most of its modern history, Nepal was not a democracy. It was a kingdom.

[00:03:19]For more than 240 years, the Shah dynasty ruled the Himalayan nation.

[00:03:24]Political parties were often sidelined.

[00:03:26]Real power rested with the palace, but that was until 1990. That is when a mass pro-democracy movement forced King Birendra to restore multi-party politics. For the first time, Nepal appeared to be transitioning into a constitutional monarchy, but the celebrations did not last long. In 1996, a communist insurgency began. The Communist Party of Nepal launched what it called a people's war. Its goal was to abolish the monarchy and build a constitutional republic. The conflict would last 10 years. Around 13,000 people were killed. Thousands more disappeared or were displaced, and an entire generation grew up under the shadow of war.

[00:04:07]Then came a tragedy that changed Nepal forever.

[00:04:09]In 2001, the royal palace became the site of one of the world's most mysterious massacres. King Birendra, Queen Aishwarya, and several members of the royal family were killed inside the royal palace.

[00:04:24]The official investigation concluded that Crown Prince had carried out the shootings before taking his own life, but the findings convinced few. Rumors spread and public trust collapsed. The monarchy never fully recovered. When King Gyanendra assumed the throne, he inherited a crisis of legitimacy.

[00:04:45]Instead of restoring confidence, the crisis deepened.

[00:04:49]In 2005, King Gyanendra dismissed the elected government and declared a state of emergency. He argued that politicians had failed and only the monarchy could defeat the insurgency. Many Nepalese disagreed. Political parties, civil society, and even the insurgents found themselves united against the palace.

[00:05:08]The following year, hundreds of thousands poured onto the streets. Weeks of demonstrations forced the king to back down. The civil war ended later that year.

[00:05:17]And in 2008, Nepal formally abolished its 240-year-old monarchy, becoming a federal democratic republic. For many Nepalese, this was supposed to be the beginning. The war had The country, rather, had survived civil war, overthrown a monarchy, and embraced [clears throat] democracy. The hardest battles, they believed, were finally over. They were wrong. Because replacing a king turned out to be much easier than building a stable government. The new leaders had to build an entirely new state. That meant writing a new constitution and deciding how power would be shared. It took nearly 7 years and finally in 2015, Nepal adopted a new constitution. It transformed the country into a federal democratic republic with three tiers of government and a brand new electoral system.

[00:06:07]The new system had an ambitious goal, representation.

[00:06:11]Nepal is one of the world's most diverse countries, dozens of ethnic communities, multiple languages, different religions, and long-standing complaints of exclusion.

[00:06:21]On paper, it was a more inclusive democracy, but in practice it created a different problem. It starts with coalition politics since no single party can win a majority on its own.

[00:06:33]Governments are built through alliances.

[00:06:36]But those alliances are often held together by power-sharing deals, not a shared vision for governing.

[00:06:42]When those deals break down, so does the government. Then there is party fragmentation. Nepal's major parties have repeatedly split into rival factions, creating new power centers, and making stable majorities even harder to build.

[00:06:57]Leadership struggles have made things worse. A handful of political heavyweights have dominated Nepali politics for decades with internal rivalries often proving more decisive than election results.

[00:07:09]The country's institutions have also come under strain. Parliament has been dissolved. The Supreme Court has stepped in to settle political deadlocks.

[00:07:17]Constitutional disputes have become part of the power struggle. The result, a growing trust deficit. Years of political instability, corruption allegations, and slow economic reforms have left many Nepalese, especially young people, disillusioned with the political establishment.

[00:07:36]That disillusionment often spills onto the streets. By the mid-2020s, as Nepalese had begun asking a difficult question. If changing governments changed so little, was the problem no longer the people in power, but the political system itself? That frustration would soon explode onto the streets, and it would produce the biggest political upheaval Nepal had seen since the end of the civil war.

[00:08:01]In September 2025, thousands of mostly young Nepalese took to the streets. Many belonged to a generation that had never lived under a king, had never experienced the civil war, and had grown up hearing that democracy would deliver a better future. Instead, they saw rising unemployment, slow economic growth, persistent corruption allegations, and the same political leaders returning to power again and again.

[00:08:25]The demonstrations quickly became the biggest political crisis Nepal had faced in years. The government's response proved costly. The crackdown on protesters left several people dead and ignited even greater public anger. The protest eventually forced Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli to resign. But unlike previous moments of political upheaval, this time voters did not simply replace one coalition with another. They turned against the political establishment itself. Just months later, Nepal went to the polls, and the result was extraordinary. The reformist RSP won an historic majority, ending decades of dominance by Nepal's traditional parties. Its leader, Balendra Shah, better known simply as Balen, became prime minister. At just 35 years old, a former rapper, engineer, and Kathmandu mayor came to symbolize a generational shift in Nepali politics. The new government moved fast.

[00:09:21]Former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli was arrested. A 100-point reform roadmap was unveiled, and the government promised to clean up the bureaucracy, create jobs, and hold powerful politicians accountable. For many Nepalese and observers in the region, it felt like the country was finally turning the page.

[00:09:40]>> I think there should be little doubt in anyone's mind that it marks a generational shift in Nepali politics.

[00:09:47]There have been governments in the past also which have had a fairly sizable number in Parliament. What it would mean is that it would make the politicians also understand that the people want them to work together.

[00:10:01]>> [snorts] >> They made promises. They want them to deliver at this that we have given you.

[00:10:06]>> But governments are not judged by their promises. They're judged by their first crisis. And for Balen, it came far sooner than expected. Earlier this month, a 25-year-old ride-share driver named Ganesh set himself on fire outside of Nepal's Department of Passports.

[00:10:23]Police had immobilized his motorcycle, the vehicle he relied on to support his family. After an argument, Ganesh poured petrol over himself and lit the match.

[00:10:33]He died a day later.

[00:10:35]His death became a rallying point.

[00:10:38]Protesters accused the government of growing heavy-handed. Anger spread beyond this single incident. Contract workers, students, trade unions, and families displaced by demolition drives all took to the streets. The man who had risen to power on a wave of youth discontent is now confronting discontent of his own. The government has ordered an investigation, announced compensation, offered a government job to Ganesh's wife, and support for his young daughter. But the incident had already become something bigger, a test of whether this government would respond differently or simply govern differently.

[00:11:13]And that brings Nepal full circle.

[00:11:15]For two decades, Nepal has searched for the right leader. But its biggest challenge may never have been finding one. It may have been building institutions strong enough that the country does not have to start over every few years.

[00:11:30]In 2006, Nepal believed ending a war would change the country. 20 years later, it has discovered something harder. Ending a war is an event. Building a democracy is a habit.

[00:11:44]>> The world doesn't fit in boxes, so why should your news?

[00:11:49]From battlefields to negotiation tables, from internet outrage to real world injustice.

[00:11:57]The conversations everyone is having and the ones they're avoiding. It's the same show, but this new year, First Post America gets a new look. I'm Kerry Donston and this is First Post America.