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Two well-known leaders have formed an alliance ahead of Nepal’s March parliamentary elections, aiming to challenge the longstanding dominance of the country’s traditional parties, which have held power for over 30 years, according to officials and analysts on Monday.
Rapper-turned-Kathmandu mayor Balendra Shah, popularly known as Balen, a widely loved elected figure, joined the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) — a party led by ex-TV host and current politician Rabi Lamichhane — on Sunday, party representatives said.
The agreement stipulates that if the RSP wins the upcoming election on March 5, 35-year-old Balen will serve as prime minister, while Lamichhane will remain the party leader.
Both leaders have committed to addressing issues raised during the youth-led protests against widespread corruption in September, which resulted in 77 deaths and led to Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli’s resignation.
“Bringing Balen and his young supporters into the RSP is a very strategic and intelligent move,” said analyst Bipin Adhikari. “Traditional political parties are nervous because they fear losing their young voters to the RSP.”
The election commission estimates nearly 19 million of Nepal’s 30 million citizens are eligible to vote. An additional million voters, most of them young people, registered after the protests.
Balen gained significant attention following those protests and was seen as a de facto leader among the youth who organized the September demonstrations. He also played a key role in forming the interim government led by former Chief Justice Sushila Karki to oversee the election process.
For the past three decades, power has largely been shared between the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) and the centrist Nepali Congress, but Balen’s emerging popularity poses a considerable challenge to these established parties.
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