The Independent National Party won the parliamentary elections in Nepal. The country’s next prime minister will be 35-year-old Balindra Shah, also known as Palin. For almost four years until January 2026, he was the mayor of Nepal’s capital and largest city, Kathmandu, and before that he was a rapper.
His rise to power was a result of the mass protests that broke out in Nepal in 2025 and which became known as the “Zoomer protests”. Balendra Shah is considered the “leader of the Zoomers”, although he himself does not belong to this generation: he was born in 1990.
Shah studied to become a civil engineer in Nepal and India. While still a student, he became interested in politics and hip-hop. In the 2000s, he became a star in rap battles on YouTube. He wrote politicized texts and expressed solidarity with the poor and disenfranchised. He cited Tupac Shakur and 50 Cent as his examples.
In 2022, Shah ran as an independent candidate for mayor of Kathmandu. Politics in Nepal boils down primarily to the confrontation between two party machines: the right-wing Nepali Congress and the left-wing Communist Party. The Shah was supported by a third force: the Pepexil (Common Sense) Party, which can be described as populist and progressive. Shah unexpectedly won the mayoral election.
As mayor, he is best remembered for the massive demolition of illegal structures on public lands – both large shopping and office complexes and small stores. On his instructions, the municipal police dispersed the street vendors, and an attempt to remove the homeless people living on the banks of the Bagmati River led to clashes in which 21 people were injured.
The Shah also constantly quarreled with the central government, and once even threatened to burn down a district in Kathmandu where the main government bodies, including Parliament and the Supreme Court, were located.
In September 2025, the “major protests” began in Nepal. The reason behind this was the blocking of 26 social networks and instant messages, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, X, Reddit and LinkedIn. The government asked owners to register with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and pay the new digital services tax. Opponents of this decision He claimedThis was dictated by the desire to limit the spread of information on social media about corruption in power, especially about the privileges and luxurious lifestyle of members of the elite.
The closure was announced on September 4. On September 8, protest marches began in Kathmandu, and then in other cities.
Nepal is a “young” country: the average age is just over 20 years. Zoomers — people born in the late 1990s and 2000s — are the largest age group. Moreover, the unemployment rate in this group exceeds 20%. In addition, up to one-third of the country’s GDP consists of remittances from abroad. Almost every family has someone who has traveled abroad for work – most often to the Gulf countries or Malaysia. Social networks and instant messengers are the main way to stay in touch with them.
From the beginning, the demonstrators demanded not only the lifting of the actual ban on social media networks, but also systematic economic and political reforms, the fight against corruption and the creation of new job opportunities. The protests quickly turned into riots: demonstrators tried to storm the parliament building, and the police and army first used tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets against them, and then live ammunition. 17 people were killed in the clashes.
Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sarma Oli, a veteran Nepali politician representing the Communist Party, resigned and fled the country. The demonstrators burned the parliament and Supreme Court buildings, in addition to the residences of the Prime Minister, the President, and the headquarters of the Communist Party. The army occupied Kathmandu airport. Ministers and representatives began to leave the country en masse.
By September 13, the riots had stopped. According to official figures, 76 people were killed, including 22 demonstrators, three police officers, and ten prisoners who tried to escape from prison. An interim government was formed and new parliamentary elections were scheduled for March 5. The ban on social media networks in the country has been lifted.
Balendra Shah supported the “Zoomer protests”. He described the ousted prime minister as a terrorist and a murderer.
The virtual collapse of the previous dominant parties, and Shah’s popularity as a rapper and “progressive” mayor, made him the main political beneficiary of the “major protests.” Soon after its completion, he began preparing for the parliamentary elections, hoping, if not to win, to become one of Nepal’s most important politicians.
In December 2025, he officially joined the Independent National Party, the largest of Nepal’s third parties, which has been a junior partner in the ruling coalition several times but has never formed its own government. Together with Shah, his team came from Pipexil to the Independent National Party – and although the party’s leadership remained officially the same, Shah became its de facto leader, and his people began to determine its strategy.
The results of the parliamentary elections scheduled for March 5 have not yet been finalized, but it is already clear that the Independent National Party will win more than half of the 275 seats – and perhaps two-thirds. This is not only the best result in the party’s history. This is the first time in many decades that one party has gained such a significant advantage over its rivals and can form a government without entering into a coalition with anyone.
Although voters officially voted for the party, in reality they did so to choose She is a Shah. He himself contested the election in the same single-term constituency that ousted Prime Minister Oli won – and received more than three times as many votes as his opponent.
Its main advantage is precisely that it is not associated with the former elite, against which “large-scale protests” began six months ago. It is not bound by any ideology or party discipline. He is a populist and a technocrat. He has a built-in team with whom he makes the most important decisions, bypassing bureaucracy. Most of these messages are from the Pipixel movement, a movement in which technocratic pragmatism replaces ideology.
In Nepal, the Prime Minister is the most powerful political figure, but he is by no means omnipotent. The Shah’s party dominates the lower house of parliament, but it is not represented in the Senate. He will likely soon face opposition from the “old guard.”