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March 5: A democratic fest

The promise of an election is the promise of change, a peaceful transfer of the people’s voice from the ballot box to the halls of power. For Nepal, the historic election of March 5 represented this promise in its most potent form. Yet, the path to this democratic festival was paved with tragedy, and the victory it yielded for the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) now presents a profound challenge: to translate a powerful electoral mandate into tangible, lived reality for its citizens. The question that hangs in the air is whether the echo of the ghanti (the bell, the election symbol of the RSP); the student protests that sparked this political realignment can truly move from being a symbol of agitation to a force for effective governance, ending corruption and shaping to the sustained economic development.

The election was not born of ordinary political circumstance, but from a crucible of national tragedy. On Sept 8-9 last year, students in uniform marching peacefully with a demand for effective governance and an end to corruption were met with lethal force. The image of school students in uniform, shot dead while exercising their civic voice, ignited a firestorm of grief and rage that consumed the nation. Public buildings, business houses including the hallowed halls of Singhdurbar and the Supreme Court, were set ablaze. The Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli (aka KP Sharma Oli) government collapsed, and the homes of political leaders across the spectrum were attacked. This was not a mere political crisis; it was a popular uprising against a systemic failure of governance, mayhem of corruption, a violent repudiation of a status quo that had prioritized power over people. It was from the ashes of this upheaval that Prime Minister Sushila Karki’s call for a national election emerged, not as a routine political exercise, but as a desperate bid to channel the nation’s fury into a democratic and constructive path.

Against this backdrop, the election itself became a powerful act of civic renewal. Citizens from the entire nation embraced it as a "festival of democracy," a collective affirmation of hope for an impactful future for them, their children and prosperity for future generations. The campaign trail became a magnet for this yearning, with the RSP under Rabi Lamichhane and the former mayor of Kathmandu, Balendra Shah, tapping directly into the public's desire for fundamental change. Their message was not one of transactional politics, but of a shared national prosperity: to connect people and communities to prioritize service over self-interest, and to dismantle the systems of deep-rooted corruption and phony governance. 

The result was a landslide of unprecedented proportions. The RSP’s victory—over 125 parliamentary seats and five million plus proportional votes—is more than a win; it was a seismic shift in Nepal’s political landscape of history. It signals the electorate’s decisive rejection of established, corrupt kitchen family-centric  political groups and a clear, unequivocal mandate for the reform agenda championed by  Rabi Lamichhane and Balendra Shah as the new guard. The challenge, however, is that securing a mandate and wielding power are two vastly different endeavors.

The most immediate and formidable obstacle confronting the RSP is not a political opposition, but the deep-seated inertia and corruption within Nepal’s bureaucracy. This administrative machinery, long accustomed to serving the interests of the old political order, is now expected to implement the radical reforms of the government system currently operating. Many bureaucrats, with fixed loyalties to political groups, the electorate just repudiated, view the new leadership with suspicion, if not with outright hostility. Their mastery lies not in public service delivery, but in navigating and exploiting legal loopholes, perpetuating rent-seeking behaviors, and ensuring that the status quo remains unchallenged. For the RSP, this presents a paradox: their government must govern through a system they were elected to dismantle. Mobilizing the lethargic and often obstructive apparatus to improve public services, from administrative, health and education to infrastructure and market access will be the first true test of their governing capability in the Singhdurbar. Failure to do so risks rendering their electoral promises hollow and eroding the very public trust that swept them into office.

This form of bureaucratic resistance is compounded by profound structural weaknesses in Nepal’s economic governance. The nation’s fiscal health tells a story of chronic mismanagement. For years, the bulk of the national budget has been consumed by recurrent expenditures, salaries, pensions, and administrative costs, while capital investment, the lifeblood of development and job creation, has languished. The figures are stark: between the fiscal year of 2019-20 and 2023-24, ratio of expenditure on total recurrent averaged 70.36 percent of the total budget spending went to recurring costs, while a mere  of 16.67 percent allocated for capital expenditures and a 12.97 percent went for debt servicing in the reporting period of five years averaged. This imbalance starves the economy of the infrastructure and productive capacity it desperately needs financing. Furthermore, a banking system that is prohibitively expensive for small and medium-sized enterprises, a private sector often more focused on tax evasion than innovation, and a monetary policy that has historically favored a few large corporate houses all conspire to stifle broad-based economic growth. Compounding these issues is a burgeoning public debt, now approaching 46 percent of GDP. For the RSP,  the task is not merely to tweak the system, but to fundamentally re-engineer it. First, the RSP government must overhaul the Ministry of Finance, transforming it from a passive administrator of routine into a strategic engine for resource generation and investment. The RSP must create a financial ecosystem that rewards entrepreneurship and productivity, not rent-seeking and evasion.

The path to reform also runs through the marble halls of the judiciary and the complex architecture of fiscal federalism. For the average citizen, the promise of justice remains a distant dream, mired in a court system known for interminable delays and prohibitive costs. Without meaningful judicial reform, the RSP’s pledge of accountability will ring hollow. What’s more, the promise of federalism, now over a decade old, has largely evaporated into poor performance and misaligned incentives. Subnational governments, rather than becoming vibrant centers of local governance, have often devolved into parking lots for party pawns and resting places for bureaucrats awaiting their retirement, contributing little to the development of their federal polity. The RSP’s inception mandate is not to get bogged down in the complex Constitutional Amendments Affairs, but to focus on this practical, improving ground-level dysfunction. From the very first day in office, citizens expect to see a difference and change in how their government functions faster public service delivery, more efficient administration at all three tiers of government, and an end to the chronic delays and cost overruns that plague development projects, which are often themselves a form of sanctioned corruption.

From Ghanti’s echo to delivery

Ultimately, the RSP’s historic victory must transform the Ghanti’s echo from a cry of grief into a demand for impactful results that the student sacrificed for. The Ghanti has echoed with unprecedented clarity, delivering not merely a rejection of personality-driven politics and infamy patronage, but a direct mandate for meaningful reform and impactful performance. The obstacles before the RSP government are formidable: a bureaucracy resistant to change, a structurally weakened economy, and a collection of institutions that have long failed to serve the public. The RSP’s success, therefore, will not be measured by the size of their parliamentary majority, but by its capacity to overcome these deeply concreted forces. It must prove that democracy can deliver that the act of casting a ballot can translate into superior governance, cultivating inclusive microeconomic opportunity, a functioning system of justice that honors slain students. The opportunity before the RSP is as immense as the challenge it faces: to move Nepal beyond its cemented cycles of misgovernance and demonstrate that the people’s voice, even when forged in the tragedy of school student killed in uniform, can indeed shape a future where the promise of a better life is finally and faithfully kept.

Three days before the March 5 election, I left Hetauda and began a short but revealing journey toward the eastern plains and hills. My purpose was simple: to listen. Over the past few months, I had already been spending long hours in tea shops, buses, and college campuses talking with ordinary people. Those conversations had convinced me that public frustration with traditional political parties had reached an unusual level. Still, I wanted to see whether that sentiment was truly widespread or simply limited to a few urban circles and social media.

So I decided to travel—from the Madhes districts toward Jhapa—to hear directly from voters on the move. The journey began around 10 in the morning in a small tea shop in Hetauda. In front of the shop, a line of microbuses waited to depart, filled with passengers heading back to their home constituencies to vote. Elections in Nepal always bring this familiar movement—students, workers, and migrants returning home to cast their ballots. Curious about the mood, I asked one passenger a simple question: “Which party will you vote for?”

He answered without hesitation: “I will vote for the Ghanti.”

“Ghanti,” the Nepali word for bell, is the election symbol of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP). Within minutes several others joined the conversation. One after another, they said the same thing—they were voting for “Ghanti.” Interestingly, many of them did not even know the name of the local candidate representing RSP. Their reasoning was straightforward: they wanted to see a new political force rise. For them, supporting the bell symbol represented change.

Some even spoke enthusiastically about wanting to see Kathmandu’s mayor, Balen Shah, take on a national leadership role someday. After spending some time there, I continued my journey toward the Madhes districts. Along the highway I stopped at several small tea shops—those familiar roadside gathering points where farmers, drivers, students, and shopkeepers debate everything from local politics to international affairs.

What struck me most during these conversations was not just the curiosity about a new party, but the depth of fatigue with the old ones. In district after district, people spoke about wanting to give someone new a chance. In Sarlahi, I met an 85-year-old man sitting quietly in a tea shop courtyard. When I asked about his voting preference, he smiled and said he would vote for the new party. “I have given many chances to the old parties,” he said calmly. “This time I want to give someone new an opportunity.”

His words captured a sentiment I had heard repeatedly during the journey—not simply anger, but exhaustion. Many voters were not necessarily hostile toward the traditional parties; they simply felt those parties had already been tested many times and had failed to deliver the change people had hoped for.

As my journey continued eastward, I eventually reached Jhapa. In Jhapa-5, I stopped at a small haircut salon. While waiting, I asked the barber about the local election atmosphere. He told me he was originally from Morang-3 and was preparing to travel there to vote. “Over the past two months,” he said, “almost everyone who came here said they would vote for the new party this time.”

A day before the election, I walked through several areas considered strongholds of traditional political parties. Normally such areas are filled with party flags and banners during campaign season. This time the visual landscape looked different. The flags of the Nepali Congress and CPN-UML were surprisingly rare. Instead, the bell symbol associated with RSP appeared frequently across houses, shops, and roadside poles.

It was difficult to determine whether this reflected stronger grassroots enthusiasm or simply more visible campaigning. But compared to previous elections, the difference was striking. During my stay in Jhapa-5, I also had the opportunity to share tea with several families. One particular conversation revealed a generational divide I had been noticing across the country. In a family of three—a father, mother, and a 21-year-old college student—the son passionately argued that the family should support the new political party. The father, a long-time supporter of UML, was hesitant to abandon the party he had supported for decades.

The mother eventually suggested a compromise: one vote for Balen and another for UML. Similar conversations seemed to be unfolding in many households. Younger voters were strongly pushing for new political alternatives, while older family members remained emotionally tied to the parties that had shaped Nepal’s political history.

In another home nearby, a father tried to persuade his daughter to remain loyal to the party he had supported all his life. She listened respectfully but appeared unconvinced. These quiet debates inside homes reflected something deeper: Nepal’s political loyalties were slowly shifting.

Throughout Jhapa I also met several committed party supporters of CPN-UML who openly expressed frustration with their own leadership. Some longtime party cadres complained about internal factionalism, leadership styles, and the growing distance between senior leaders and ordinary supporters.

By the end of the day, after nearly four hours of conversations across tea shops, homes, and small businesses, one impression stood out clearly: voters were eager for change, though not necessarily united behind a single political alternative. Later that evening, back at the hotel, the staff were packing their bags to return home to vote. I casually asked them about their preferences.

They laughed. “Dai, do you still have confusion?” one of them said. “Of course we are voting for the bell.” The next morning, before voting officially began, I visited a polling station near the hotel. Around nine o’clock, an energetic elderly man—well into his seventies—walked out after casting his ballot.

When I asked him about the atmosphere inside, he confidently replied that many voters there seemed to be choosing the bell symbol. Throughout the day I visited several polling stations. While it is impossible to know exactly how people vote inside the booth, the conversations outside suggested that many voters were reconsidering long-standing party loyalties.

The reasons behind this shift appeared consistent across districts. People repeatedly spoke about corruption scandals, dissatisfaction with governance, lack of job opportunities, and the painful reality of watching young people leave the country in search of work. Among these concerns, employment stood out as the most urgent.

At the same time, voters did not express blind trust in the new political actors either. What they demanded most was accountability—clear answers, transparent leadership, and tangible results rather than speeches. By the time I completed my journey from the Madhes districts to Jhapa, one conclusion seemed unavoidable: the psychological environment of this election felt different from previous ones.

Now the election results are out. As anticipated, the Rastriya Swatantra Party has secured nearly a two-thirds majority in the 275-member House of Representatives, and Balendra Shah is poised to become the next prime minister.

The conversations I heard along the road help explain why. Across tea shops, buses, salons, and family kitchens, people repeatedly spoke about their exhaustion with traditional political parties. Many felt those parties had dominated politics for decades but had failed to deliver the jobs, governance, and opportunities citizens expected.

Yet the mood was not defined by frustration alone. It was also filled with hope. People now expect the new government to control corruption, create employment, strengthen governance, and restore a sense of trust between citizens and the state.

Whether those expectations can be fulfilled remains to be seen. But one thing is already clear. Across the country—from the plains of the Madhes to the eastern towns of Jhapa—citizens are questioning old loyalties, debating politics more openly, and demanding greater accountability from those who seek to represent them.

Four years ago, the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) did not exist. Today, it is forming Nepal’s government. That alone should make every traditional political party stop and ask itself a very uncomfortable question: what went so wrong?

The March 5 election results were not merely a surprise. They were a rebuke, delivered quietly through the ballot box by millions of Nepalese voters who had run out of patience. RSP's landslide victory is historic not because a new party won, but because it signals something deeper: the collapse of public faith in the political establishment that has governed this country since the democratic revolution of 1990.

The weight of 35 years

To understand why RSP won, you have to understand what Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, and the Maoist Centre have come to represent in the minds of ordinary voters. These parties have had every opportunity. They have held power repeatedly. They have made promises repeatedly. And repeatedly, voters have watched corruption scandals unfold, unemployment persist, public services stay broken, and governments formed through deals that had nothing to do with governance and everything to do with political survival.

The Sept 2025 GenZ protests tried to force accountability through the streets. Young people came out in tens of thousands, angry and organized, demanding change. The response from the old guard was predictable: consolidate, maneuver, and wait for the storm to pass. Many of those same leaders tightened their grip on their party structures and assumed they would outlast the anger.

They misread the room. When the protest could not dislodge them, voters took matters into their own hands on election day. Quietly, and in massive numbers, they chose someone else.

The Balen factor

RSP’s strategic decision to align with Kathmandu’s popular mayor, Balen Shah, and present him as the incoming Prime Minister just weeks before the election was arguably the most consequential political move of this election cycle. It gave RSP something it badly needed: a face, a story, and a reason to vote.

Balen ran a campaign unlike anything Nepal had seen before. He traveled the country in a caravan-style tour, appearing in constituency after constituency, not as a party boss but as something closer to a movement. His interactions with the media remained minimal. His public statements were carefully measured. Yet none of that seemed to matter. What voters saw was someone different. Someone who had actually done something as Kathmandu’s mayor, and who carried himself with a quiet credibility that felt foreign in a political landscape dominated by familiar faces making familiar promises.

This is important to understand: many voters who cast a ballot for RSP could not name their local RSP candidate. Many had only a vague sense of the party’s actual policy platform. What they knew was Balen, and what Balen represented—the possibility, however uncertain, that things could be done differently. In a country exhausted by broken promises, that possibility was enough.

History has a pattern

Nepal’s political history follows a recognizable rhythm. The party that captures the energy of a major political turning point tends to win the election that follows. Nepali Congress led the government after the 1990 democratic movement. The Maoists swept to power after the peace process ended the decade-long armed conflict. Madhes-based parties rose in 2008 on the back of a powerful identity movement. UML and the Maoists dominated in 2017 after steering the promulgation of the new federal constitution.

RSP has now repeated this pattern. Whatever one thinks of the GenZ protests, RSP absorbed their energy and their symbolism. They carried the sentiment of that movement into the election. And history, as it tends to do, rewarded them for it.

The harder question

But winning is the easy part. Governing is not. RSP now inherits a country with a fractured economy, deeply entrenched patronage networks, a public service in disrepair, and a geopolitical position that requires careful navigation between India, China and the West. The very expectations that swept RSP to power are now its greatest liability. Voters did not just want RSP to win. They wanted someone to actually fix things. The mandate is real, but so is the weight of it.

Several questions will define RSP’s tenure before it even properly begins. Can the party hold together its internal dynamics—particularly the relationship between the party leadership and whoever leads the government—without fracturing under the pressure of real decisions? Will it have the discipline to focus on long-term governance rather than the temptation of short-term popularity through high-profile corruption investigations? And perhaps most critically: will it fall into the same patterns of compromise politics that eroded the credibility of every government before it?

There is also the question of capacity. RSP is a four-year-old party. It does not have the deep bench of experienced administrators and policymakers that comes with decades in politics. This is, in some ways, part of its appeal. But governing a country is not the same as campaigning through one. The distance between the promise of change and the delivery of it has destroyed many political careers in Nepal. RSP is about to find out how wide that distance really is.

A verdict, not a blank cheque

The March 5 result deserves to be read for what it is: a verdict on the past, and a conditional bet on the future. Voters did not give RSP unconditional trust. They gave it a chance and it is a rare, hard-won chance born out of collective frustration and a willingness to try something new. That is not the same as loyalty, and RSP would be wise not to confuse the two.

Nepal’s old parties will not disappear. They will regroup, recalibrate, and wait. If RSP stumbles—if governance fails, if corruption appears, if the internal politics become more visible than the public service—those parties will be ready to remind voters that the alternative they chose was no better than what came before.

The GenZ generation that lit the fuse of this political moment is watching. So is the far larger group of ordinary Nepalis who quietly voted for change without quite knowing what form it would take. They have done their part. The ballot box has spoken.

Now comes the harder work, and the real test of whether this is truly a new chapter in Nepal's politics, or just another turn of the same old wheel.

New Delhi's Middle East diplomacy paid off on Thursday as Iran allowed Indian oil tankers to pass through the strategically crucial Strait of Hormuz after talks between External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi, sources told India Today.

The discussions were aimed at ensuring that India'senergy supplies remain uninterrupted amid escalating tensions in West Asia.

The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most important maritime chokepoints, through which a significant portion of global crude oil and natural gas shipments transit, according to India Today.