Can a rapper save Nepal?
A royal massacre, a deadly quake and student protests have left a country in crisis
Nepal is going to the polls, five months after Gen Z-led anti-corruption protests brought down the government. Yet it’s a Himalayan task to work out what exactly comes next.
Will high-minded demands from the September uprising translate into meaningful change, including much-needed economic reform? Might there be a clutch of newbie parliamentarians, maybe even a 35-year-old former rapper as prime minister? Or will vestiges of the old guard — veteran politicians and an entrenched culture of corruption — hold on to key levers of power?
And is Nepal’s monarchy — 240 years old when it was abolished in 2008 — being primed for some sort of return? Balen Shah, the engineer-turned-rapper who became mayor of the capital Kathmandu before his run for PM, is said to be undecided about restoring King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah. So are many of the young protesters.
But others complain of a pattern of political instability in the years since the king was sent packing. On Valentine’s Day, large crowds hailed Gyanendra and the dethroned royal responded by suggesting Nepal should resolve its “whirlwind of distress” before any elections.
“Distress” is an emotive word but it is shot through much of the writing from and on Nepal since the turn of the millennium. In 2001, there was the massacre of nearly the entire royal family by Gyanendra’s nephew, the lovesick crown prince…
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