Nepal’s Political Elites Dig in Their Heels After Gen Z Uprising

Meena Bhatta

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A month has passed since the September 8-9 uprising that shook Nepal’s political establishment from its core, forcing rapid and dramatic changes. The unprecedented Gen Z movement toppled the K.P. Sharma Oli-led government, resulting in the formation of an interim government under former Chief Justice Sushila Karki. Nepal’s streets are now momentarily calm, but the nation stands at a political crossroads. Whether Nepal can transform the movement’s energy into lasting democratic stability remains a difficult question.

The interim government has announced a fresh election for March 5, 2026, but uncertainty clouds the path forward. Nepal’s two biggest political parties, the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist-Leninist (CPN-UML) remain internally divided and have not officially committed to the declared election. Factions within these political parties are split on whether to move ahead with elections or to push for the reinstatement of the dissolved House of Representatives, claiming its dissolution as unconstitutional.

Deepening the gridlock, Oli – the ousted prime minister who is still the CPN-UML chair – publicly rejected the legitimacy of the Karki-led interim government and declared that his party would not participate in the elections under its authority. This stance has also found resonance among dissenting voices within the NC, thus widening the political rift that now defines Nepal’s fragile transition.

These developments expose a troubling reality. Rather than engaging in genuine retrospection on what drove the young generation to the streets, party leaders seem focused on preserving their political relevance, risking a repeat of the very dysfunction that triggered the upheaval. An even more troubling possibility is electoral futility. What if the March 2026 election simply reinstates the status quo, bringing back the same political parties, the same faces, and the same patterns of governance to power? The longer these uncertainties loom, the greater the risk of undermining the credibility of the interim government and eroding public trust in the transition.