Naturally, Nepal is beautiful, geographically Nepal is landlocked and politically Nepal is always unstable. But after the March 5 election, the term unstable will be stable—that’s our hope—with a new political party set to form the government. Nepal has just seen a political earthquake. In the recent election, the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), led by Balendra (Balen) Shah, has secured a historic majority in the federal parliament, with around 182 seats out of 275. The so‑called big parties of yesterday have been pushed far behind. Many of their senior leaders have lost. Only former Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has managed to return to parliament from Rukum East, while other familiar famous faces have disappeared from the front line. This result is not a small change; it is a clear message from the people that they were tired of the old way of politics and new one to be corrected in present and future with the hope not to be repeated from this wave too.
Nepal has long struggled with hung parliaments, unstable governance, and never-ending positional negotiations. The people’s lives remained unchanged despite the government’s repeated changes in leadership. Rather than being influenced by the general welfare, policy decisions were frequently influenced by personal interests, political agreements, and corruption. Like in the past, basic government services remained cumbersome, slow, and rude. People believed that even basic tasks required bribes or political ties. Due to their inability to obtain good services, health care, or education at home, young people from villages and small towns continued to migrate to cities and other nations. A ‘tsunami of votes’ was made possible by this lingering discontent.
Why did this tsunami of votes come for RSP and Balen Shah? There are several reasons. First, young people, especially the GenZ generation, had already shown their anger through protests and social media campaigns against corruption, nepotism, and the lifestyle of the political elite. They were tired of seeing leaders’ children enjoying luxury while ordinary youth stood in queues for passports and labor permits. Second, Balen presented itself as a clean, new force with a strong anti‑corruption message and a modern style of communication. Balen Shah’s own image as an engineer, rapper, and independent thinker who had already shaken the old parties in Kathmandu’s mayoral politics gave people hope that a different kind of leadership is possible.
Third, voters punished the old parties because they failed to provide stable and honest governance after the federal republic was established. Leaders kept making coalitions only to save their chairs, not to serve the people. They talked about socialism and equality, but the gap between their words and their actions became too big. In this election, people decided to clean the field. This is not just a victory for one party; it is a warning that any party can be thrown out if it betrays public trust.
Now, with a clear majority, the biggest hope is political stability. For the first time in many years, one party has enough seats to form a government without being hostage to small coalition partners. This creates an opportunity and a big responsibility. The question is: what should this new government do first, so that people feel their vote was not wasted?
The first duty of the new government is to restore ‘trust’. Trust will not come from speeches; it will come from concrete actions that people can see and feel in daily life. The government’s first decisions should focus on cleaning the system and improving basic services. A strong first move could be to announce a national “Good Governance and Service Reform Plan” with clear, time‑bound targets. For example, the government can declare that key services such as citizenship, social security, passports, driving licenses, land registration and business registration must be delivered within a fixed number of days, through a simple process, with transparent fees. There should not be rules office and employee wise.
To make this real, there should be a public “Revised Service Charter” in every office, and a system for citizens to complain easily if offices delay work or demands. Complaints should go to an independent mechanism that can take action quickly on responsible officials. If people see that the government seriously protects them against harassment in offices, their hope will grow.
The second urgent duty is to fight against growing corruption at all levels in political leadership, civil service, and the private sector. Corruption has become like cancer in Nepal. To control it, the new government can follow some guiding steps:
- Establish the mechanism of investigating assets of public holding
- Give real independence, resources, and technology to anti‑corruption bodies so they can investigate big cases without political pressure
- Protect whistle‑blowers who expose corruption in government offices, public enterprises, or private companies doing public work
- Introduce e‑procurement and open data for all major contracts, so that the public and media can see who is getting which contract, at what price, and with what results
- Revise government office and employee numbers and provide plenty of tasks to the employee
- Enforce strict punishment for proven corruption, even if the person belongs to the ruling party
Importantly, the new government must apply the same standard to its own members. If RSP protects corrupt people inside its own ranks, the moral authority of this “change” will collapse. People voted for RSP to break the old culture, not to repeat it with new faces.
The third big responsibility is to make the state work for the whole country, not just for the center and own area. People in rural hills, Madhes plains, and remote areas have suffered from poor infrastructure of schools, poor health posts, bad roads, and lack of safe drinking water. Many of them feel that the state only remembers them during elections. The new government must show that it respects every citizen equally. Early budgets should prioritise basic services in the poorest and most neglected areas. Local governments should receive predictable funding and technical support, with clear rules and monitoring, so that funds are not misused on the way.
The government must also speak clearly about inclusion. Nepal is home to diverse communities—Dalit, indigenous, Madhesi, Muslim, Tharu, and others—who still face discrimination and barriers. For them, good governance means being able to enter an office without humiliation, getting justice from police and courts, and seeing people like themselves represented in state institutions. The new leadership should enforce laws against caste and gender discrimination, improve representation in public service, and design targeted programmes for those at the bottom.
Another major challenge is to give young people a reason to stay here. Before this election, unemployment, low wages, and frustration with the system pushed thousands of youths to go abroad every day. If nothing changes, the country will lose its energy and future. The new government must make youth employment a top priority. This can include transparent and fair public service exams, support for small and medium enterprises, skills training linked with technology and green jobs, and encouragement for innovation and start‑ups. At the same time, the government must clean up existing recruitment processes where cheating and favoritism have damaged trust.
To move toward a “Good Governance Country”, the change must be both structural and cultural. Structurally, laws, rules, and institutions have to be improved. Culturally, habits of power, ego, and misuse must be challenged. Political leaders should set an example by living simply, avoiding unnecessary luxury at public cost, and being reachable to citizens. Parliamentary committees should actually question ministers and review policies, not just act as rubber stamps. The media and civil society should be free to criticize without fear.
The first-ever decisions of this new government will be remembered. If they touch the everyday pain of citizens’ corruption, delay, disrespect, unemployment, reducing cost for representatives and government officials, poor service people will feel that a new era has truly begun. If those first decisions are only about positions, protocol, and party interests, people will quickly feel cheated again. The “tsunami of votes” that lifted RSP and Balen to power can, in future, sweep it away too.
Nepal now stands at a crossroads. The old parties have been taught a hard lesson by the people. The party has been given a historic chance. Stability will come not just from numbers in parliament, but from honesty in action. If this government can be brave, humble, and consistent, Nepal can slowly move from a culture of corruption and chaos to a culture of service and dignity. The people have done their part. Now it is the government’s turn to show this time, change is real. And we will feel we are rich in every aspect, where we were always poor. We are ready to wait for some time, understanding that deep reform cannot happen in one single day. But we are also watching carefully. The early days and the first decisions will be remembered for many years, either as the moment when Nepal finally started to respect its citizens or as one more missed opportunity.
