Nepal voted for change. Can its rapper-engineer PM deliver?

2026.03.18 05:50 Balendra Shah of the Rastriya Swatantra Party takes a selfie with children and supporters during a door-to-door election campaign on February 16. Photo: AFP Nepal’s prime minister-in-waiting came to power on a promise of change. Now he faces the monumental challenge of taking on a system weighed down by corruption and poor governance while meeting the towering expectations of the millions who backed him and his anti-establishment party. Balendra Shah – a rapper, engineer and former mayor of Kathmandu popularly known as Balen – handily defeated former prime minister K.P. Sharma Oli in the election on March 5, with his Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) securing a parliamentary majority. It marked a clear break from the Himalayan nation’s revolving door of old-guard leaders. But the incoming administration has no time to rest on its laurels. Nepal’s national flag is seen flying at half-mast through a structure built in the shape of country’s map in Kathmandu last September following that month’s deadly unrest. Photo: AFP Its to-do list, which spans reviving a struggling economy to shoring up institutions weakened by years of political instability, is daunting. “Our economy is almost in a slumber,” said Bhojraj Poudel, an economist and founder of the Institute for Future, a Kathmandu-based policy research think tank. “The incoming government has a big list of things to do, from encouraging the private sector to bringing in foreign direct investment. It has the challenge of rebranding Nepal as an economically viable destination.” The World Bank projects economic growth will slow to 2.1 per cent this year, down from 4.6 per cent in 2025, owing to a confluence of instability, structural weakness and dampened investment sentiment following last year’s deadly unrest. More than one in five young people still in the country are unemployed. Many more – around 2,300 per day, according to some estimates – have fled abroad in search of better opportunities. Nepali mi

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