Each election cycle in Nepal feels increasingly familiar. We hear the same promises, see the same performative outrage and end with the same disappointment. What is most troubling is not the repetition itself, but what we have quietly stopped expecting from politics. We have accepted that elections are won through agitation rather than argument, that campaigns succeed by provoking emotion instead of persuading voters, and that anger can substitute for an economic roadmap. Somewhere along the way, we have normalised the idea that citizens should be mobilised, not convinced.

Our political history has never been calm. We dismantled entrenched power, endured conflict and rewrote the rules of the state. These were not polite or technocratic processes. They required collective anger against injustice. But a dangerous shift has taken place. What once helped challenge power is now used to avoid accountability. Tactics that once confronted exclusion are now deployed by those in power to deflect scrutiny. Agitation has shifted from a tool of transformation to a permanent governing style.

The pattern is easy to recognise. Politicians rarely explain how jobs will be created or how public spending will be financed. Instead, they blame corrupt elites, foreign interests, or the legacy of the past. Policy trade-offs are ignored, even though choosing one path always means sacrificing another. Complexity is dismissed as sabotage. The message remains consistent: stay angry, remain vigilant and trust us to channel your frustration. This is not accidental. It is a calculated replacement of judgment with emotion, and it works because many citizens are exhausted. Years of slow progress and weak institutions have made cynicism feel reasonable. When trust erodes, anger begins to feel like the only honest response.

But agitation is not representation. Outrage is not policy. And the ability to provoke emotion is not the same as the capacity to govern. When politics revolves around anger, leaders govern through excuses. Policy failures are blamed on obstruction. Institutional paralysis is framed as a conspiracy. There is always an enemy to fight, which conveniently means there is never a responsibility to accept. Accountability dissolves into constant conflict, and governance becomes loud but ineffective.

The irony is that many political movements began with legitimate demands for dignity and inclusion. Mobilisation was once a corrective to exclusion. But mobilisation rooted in justice is not the same as permanent agitation. When anger becomes the only political currency, it stops empowering citizens and starts manipulating them. It no longer challenges power. It protects it.

We do not lack political energy. We have rallies, movements and passion in abundance. What we lack is space for reasoning. Space to ask uncomfortable questions about budgets, implementation and the rule of law. That space has shrunk because agitation crowds it out. In an environment saturated with provocation, exercising judgment becomes a radical act. This is why elections often feel disconnected from governing reality. Campaigns promise total transformation without explaining institutions, constraints, or trade-offs. Voters are asked to choose sides, not solutions. The result is predictable. Governments elected on emotion struggle with the slow, technical work of building a functioning state. Democracy turns into a theatre rather than a choice.

Democracy is not defined by how loudly people vote, but by whether their vote reflects judgment. Elections that treat citizens as crowds to be managed are hollow. Voting carefully is not elitist. It is an assertion of agency. It rejects the idea that politics must be blind loyalty or total cynicism. It insists that leaders be evaluated on capacity, not charisma; on explanation, not provocation. Anger has its place. But there is a difference between passion that builds and agitation that only burns.

As the next election approaches, the most important question is not which party one supports, but whether one is voting as a political agent or merely reacting to provocation. Resist the easy path. Do not vote for whoever makes you angriest or whoever validates frustration most loudly. Vote for those who explain rather than inflame, who acknowledge limits rather than promise miracles, and who treat citizens as capable of judgment. One careful vote will not fix institutions overnight. But if enough voters insist on substance over slogans, they can force politics to change. Today, the hardest democratic act is not voting loudly. It is voting carefully.