A couple of months have passed since Prime Minister Sushila Karki assumed office on September 12. Tasked with a mandate of holding federal elections within six months, the clock is ticking for her. She has a tough job ahead. Besides the time constraints, she needs to make sure the environment is top-notch and secure for candidates to canvass voters and for voters to go to the polling booths. Police morale is low, and early signs are that the KP Oli-led Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) is not in a mood to contest the elections. Questions are being raised in various circles if elections will be held at all, with some hoping the dissolved House of Representatives gets reinstated. This will be suicidal. 

President Ramchandra Paudel dissolved the Lower House at the recommendation of Prime Minister Karki, who was not a member of Parliament and had previously served as a Supreme Court chief justice. If the 2015 Constitution is strictly adhered to, Karki is ineligible to become prime minister. But she became one in extraordinary circumstances. Nepal had just witnessed a spontaneous uprising that toppled the Oli government in less than 48 hours. A Gen Z anti-corruption movement on September 8 met with such force that scores of peaceful protestors lost their lives, only to be followed by the next day’s arson, violence and destruction of private and public property, including the historic Singha Durbar.

In the aftermath of the Gen Z movement, Sher Bahadur Deuba, president of the Nepali Congress, and his wife went to Singapore. The couple was roughed up during the protest. Deuba (80 next June), a five-time prime minister between 1995 and 2022 and party president since 2016, has said he will retire from active politics. The party is currently divided over whether to convene a general convention or a special convention to pick the new leader. Pushpa Kamal Dahal recently unified his Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) with nine other fringe communist parties, including Madhav Kumar Nepal’s Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Socialist), to establish the Nepal Communist Party. 

Unlike Deuba, Dahal, who will be 71 next month and is a three-time prime minister between 2008 and 2024, is not letting go of his hunger to remain relevant in Nepali politics, assembling a bunch of leaders in their 70s and 80s, including Nepal (73 next March), Jhal Nath Khanal (76 next May), Bam Dev Gautam (82 next July) and Bhim Rawal (70 next month), among others. In the changed political context, it remains to be seen if they manage to (1) contest and (2) win a seat in the upcoming elections. Gen Z protesters took to the streets in September, calling for reform of governance, a corruption-free society, and the passing of the leadership baton to younger generations. They are not heeded.

In Bhaktapur’s Gundu, not only are these voices not listened to, but attempts are being made to play down—even pooh-pooh—the magnitude of the Gen Z movement. Gundu is the current home of Oli, whose Balkot residence was burnt down by arsonists on September 9. There is perhaps no better metaphor for the abrupt change in Nepali politics than Oli’s journey from Balkot to Gundu—or from Baluwatar, the official residence of prime minister, to Gundu. But the message coming from Gundu is that it is all normal—oblivious of the fact that he spent 10 days under Army protection post-resignation and that there is an interim government in place. Asking for the reinstatement of Parliament does not look sane.

It is in fact sadder to see most of the top UML leadership continue to kowtow to Oli’s theatrics, which are at best comical and at worst inflammatory. The four-time prime minister between 2015 and 2025 has served as the UML chair since 2014 and is in no mood to let go. He will be 74 next February. In apparent fear of competition for the party chair, Oli’s central committee, a few months ago, decided not to renew the party membership of former President Bidya Devi Bhandari. Oli may very well be fighting the last battle, but if the rest of the UML leadership does not grasp the changed political context and replace Oli in next month’s general convention, then they risk voters’ wrath in the upcoming elections.

It is easy to see why the likes of Oli want to cling on. Corruption since the onset of multiparty democracy in 1990—and particularly since 2008 when monarchy was abolished—is pervasive. To boot, the system was getting abused to the limit. In 2017, Arzu Rana Deuba lost in parliamentary elections from Kailai; in 2022, she decided not to run but was elected as a proportional representative and went on to become minister of foreign affairs. In 2017, Gautam was defeated in Bardiya, only to be appointed as a National Assembly member by Bhandari. The Upper House was supposed to be filled with intellectuals and experts, but this has instead been turned into a retirement centre for party cadres.

In the meantime, as of mid-October, Nepal’s public debt has ballooned to Rs2.72 trillion, up from Rs2.67 trillion in mid-July, with the debt-to-GDP ratio doubling within a decade to 44.6 percent. The trend is not going in the right direction. The good thing is that the future—today’s youth—is taking notice. It is dawning upon them that it is their generation that will be footing the bill for the mismanagement of the ruling class in their 70s. The Gen Z movement of September is nothing but a by-product of this. The danger is that the nation may not have seen the last of it should the hitherto-leading political parties, which brought upon themselves their misery, do not tread with caution and wisdom.

The Gen Z protests are proof where power truly lies. Young people rose without a leader, and this probably cost them an opportunity to completely overhaul the system. Past revolutions—1951, 1990, 2006—in due course resulted in a new constitution. This time around, the trusting Gen Z leaders did not even ask for an interim constitution. This is one reason why Oli can call for the restoration of Parliament. People do all kinds of things when they are lulled into complacency. It is this false sense of belief that things are back to normal that Oli—and others—think they can peacefully go back to forming a government if Parliament is restored. For the sake of the nation, this is not a risk worth taking.