Newly appointed Prime Minister Sushila Karki has started consultations with close aides and leaders from the Gen Z movement in order to give full shape to her Cabinet. Karki, who was appointed and sworn in on Friday evening, plans to assume her office in the Singha Durbar complex on Sunday.

From Sunday morning, she will expedite consultations to give full shape to the Cabinet, an aide to Karki told the Post.

In line with the suggestions coming in from different sectors, she is not interested in forming a big Cabinet exceeding 15 ministers, the aide said.

After being sworn in as the first female prime minister of the country, Karki has taken the responsibility of all 25 ministries. She has the luxury of appointing up to 25 ministers but she does not want to make the same mistakes that her predecessors as prime minister did, the aide said.

“So she is in the mood to have a small Cabinet of under 15 members. That is the message of the Gen Z movement too,” the aide added.

Several names have come up and been recommended by different people for ministers, a second aide, who has for long been assisting Karki, said, adding that the final decision will be taken after consultations with a core group of Gen Zs.

Some names circulating are lawyer Om Prakash Aryal, Balananda Sharma, Anand Mohan Bhattarai, Madhav Sundar Khadka, Asheem Man Singh Basnyat and Kulman Ghising.

From the medical fraternity, Dr Bhagawan Koirala, Dr Sanduk Ruit, Dr Jagadish Agrawal and Dr Pukar Chandra Shrestha are also being discussed as possible faces in her Cabinet.

On the other hand, Gen Z members are also holding consultations within their fraternity to select ministers, including on social media platforms like Discord.

If an agreement is reached, the new ministers will be sworn in by Sunday evening, an aide to the prime minister said. Or else it might be pushed till Monday.

Hami Nepal, which drove thousands of youths in the protests, is now taking the lead in the key political negotiations. But its leaders, including Sudan Gurung who leads the group, have refused to join the government.

On Saturday, Karki held some internal meetings and later visited three hospitals to speak to the youths who sustained injuries during the Gen Z protests on Monday and Tuesday.

She went to Bir Hospital, the nearby Trauma Centre and Civil Service Hospital at New Baneshwar to learn about their health conditions. Most of the injured youths had told her not to forget the sacrifice of youths and act in a way that future generations would not have hit the streets to take part in similar movements.

On Saturday evening, Karki met Chief Secretary Ek Narayan Aryal,

Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashok Sigdel, Home Secretary Gokarna Mani Duwadi and Finance Secretary Ghanshyam Upadhyay, among other senior officers, to get updates on various governance-related issues.