In a resounding affirmation of Gen Z’s power to overthrow the political old guard, Nepali voters have handed a commanding majority to a party headlined by a 35-year-old ex-rapper.
Partial results of the election released on Sunday gave the party of Balendra Shah, the onetime rap artist and former mayor of the country’s capital, Kathmandu, 100 out of 165 directly elected parliamentary seats. It is shaping up to be the biggest landslide in Nepal’s modern electoral history.
The election on Thursday was the first since a youth-led uprising last year toppled a government that was seen as corrupt and untouchable. In September, security forces killed 19 people who were protesting political impunity and a social media ban. Hours later, Nepal descended into chaos, with dozens more dying and thousands of buildings burned nationwide in a campaign of mass arson. K.P. Sharma Oli, the prime minister, was ousted. Gen Z claimed its first political revolution.
“A lot of people wanted change, but no one expected such a landslide,” said Subhash Sharma, a senior official with Mr. Shah’s Rastriya Swatantra Party, or R.S.P., reflecting on the electoral outcome.
Mr. Shah, known as Balen, pitted himself directly against Mr. Oli, 74, for a parliamentary seat in eastern Nepal. The former rapper easily defeated the three-time prime minister.
The results released so far do not include tallies from parliamentary seats allocated proportionally to parties. But the R.S.P. is leading there, too, with one-quarter of the votes counted. For years, three parties have controlled Nepali politics, forming delicate coalitions in a cascade of combinations that showed little fealty to ideology. No elected government in Nepali history has served a full five-year term.
“It’s been a long time of unstable politics, turmoil and corruption,” said Biraj Bhakta Shrestha, an R.S.P. candidate who was overwhelmingly re-elected to his seat in Kathmandu. “I hope that Nepal will go toward prosperity and social harmony with the mandate of the people this time.”
The R.S.P., which was founded less than four years ago, has marketed itself as technocratic and digitally fluent, packed with civil society stalwarts and earnest aides to Mr. Shah during his time as mayor. The average age of its candidates is decades younger than those of the big three parties. (Besides Mr. Oli, another leader of a big three political party also lost his seat on Thursday.)
But for the R.S.P. to change Nepal, such as pushing for a directly elected prime minister and judicial reform, it will require support from members of the National Assembly, the upper house. Elections for that happen separately, and the R.S.P. does not have a single seat there. To succeed, the R.S.P. will have to engage in the kind of deal-making for which Mr. Shah has so far shown sneering distaste.
Viewed as an avatar of change, Mr. Shah is undoubtedly popular. As Kathmandu’s mayor, he tackled mountains of trash and sharpened schools. But a campaign to clean up the streets occurred at the expense of impoverished vendors, who were violently cleared away. Slums that didn’t fit his image of a clean capital were summarily destroyed.
Critics say that Mr. Shah prefers fiat over consensus. His social media stance is bellicose. He has cursed India, China and the United States, along with Nepal’s political establishment. Last month, he told an election rally that contractors who inhibit road construction should be tied to trees, locked in sheds or made to lie in the road.
Mr. Shah also faces potential fractures within the R.S.P., which he only joined in January. The party’s founder, Rabi Lamichhane, a former talk show host, is embroiled in ongoing legal cases, including one accusing him of fraud. During the chaos of the Gen Z protests, Mr. Lamichhane, who had been incarcerated, suddenly turned up on the streets. Mr. Lamichhane, who returned to prison days later, is now out again and won re-election to his parliamentary seat.
“Without Balen Shah, it would have been very difficult to bring about this kind of outcome,” Mr. Sharma, the R.S.P. official, said, referring to the party’s victory.
The unofficial soundtrack of the past six months was one of Mr. Shah’s songs, “Nepal Smiling.” With a backbeat of happy children, Mr. Shah raps the country’s woes: “Oppression, attacks, crime and thoughtlessness, we are without options, foreign banks call us beggars, predatory leaders.”
Voter turnout on Thursday didn’t quite reach 60 percent, low for an election that had been pitched as a referendum on change. Some young people said that while they yearned for fresh voices in politics, they felt too disengaged to vote. Millions of Nepalis, who are forced to work overseas for economic survival, were disenfranchised because Nepal lacks absentee voting.
Still, voters’ commitment to democracy extended to the most remote reaches of the mountainous country. In far western Accham District, relatives carried a 107-year-old woman on a wooden chair for an hour to the polling station.
“This time we need new faces, not the same old people who do nothing,” said Ram Das Manandhar, 84, as he rested with his cane in front of a polling station in Kathmandu before voting.
Hannah Beech is a Times reporter based in Bangkok who has been covering Asia for more than 25 years. She focuses on in-depth and investigative stories.
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