What next for Nepal's Big 3 parties?

A week after Nepal’s deadly protests, the country’s three main political parties whose offices were torched have been coming out in public pledging to reform themselves.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal of the Maoist-Centre visited his gutted party headquarters on Tuesday and said it would be rebuilt “on an even grander scale”. 

Five-time prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba of the Nepali Congress (NC) and his wife are still being treated for the wounds they suffered while being attacked at their home on 9 September. 

In both parties, younger members have said it is time for their seniors to step down as leaders. 

K P Oli who was ousted as prime minister last week after the GenZ protests turned violent with a loss of 74 lives, is also under Nepal Army protection in a base inside Shivapuri National Park outside Kathmandu. But his UML party has said it is not looking at a change in leadership at present.

All the main parties have offered sympathies for the lives lost in last week’s violence, and some members said it was time for a generational change within their parties as well. But all sides tip-toed around one crucial point: the GenZ demand for a change in leadership and political culture.

Former prime ministers Deuba, Dahal and Oli have been playing musical chairs taking turns to be prime ministers in 12 coalition governments in the past 10 years — despite their differing political ideologies.

What stands out in the recent statements of political leaders is not what was said, but what was left unsaid: none have raised the issue of transferring leadership to younger figures, let alone democratising their parties internally. 

“Parties that do not appeal to the people, especially young people, will stop being relevant,” says Uddhab Pyakurel, a professor of political sociology at Kathmandu University (KU). “However, political  parties are an integral component of our democracy.” 

The youth wings of the main three parties do not shy away from criticising the impunity of their seniors, but have not been able to bring internal reform within their organisations. 

Activists in the GenZ movement that toppled the regime last week say they do not follow any -isms, but Roshan Thapa Magar of the  ANNISU (Revolutionary) that is affiliated to the Maoists says: “Ideologies still matter, the sacrifices of the parties in Nepal’s democratic struggles, and what they continue to represent, remain indispensable.” 

He admits being taken aback by the way Maoist leaders and their relatives were portrayed in the #NepoBaby social media campaign: “It was disheartening and disappointing to see how power and position misused by our leaders in a party made up of ordinary people. It is now up to us to reform and restructure our parties to gain this trust again.”

Nawaraj Tripathee, a former Nepal Student Union (NSU) member and now the NC’s Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources says: “Only our party embodies the spirit of democracy etched into its core. But we have lost touch with democracy from within, therefore people are frustrated with us and a leadership that has acted with impunity and a tight grip on power.”

But he adds: “But this public disillusionment with us does not mean that we give up on the values of our party, it means we restructure the leadership and renew at all levels so that a new generation can lift the party up again.” 

SHOCK THERAPY

Yet both acknowledge frustrations with their own leadership and say that the voices they raised against corruption were not loud enough to be heard. The deadly protests last week should be shock therapy to the leadership — especially if they want to recoup before early elections that have been called for 5 March 2026.

Thapa Magar says student politics has been important for the bottom-up voice of youth to be brought to the leadership level. He says, “If the GenZ organised the protests better, then we would perhaps not see the kind of looting and destruction on 9 September. We in the student wings of political parties know how to mobilise protests better.”

Over at the CPN-UML student wing ANNFSU, chair Sujan Kadariya and Abdus Miya quit their parties in dramatic fashion via Facebook following the bloodbath on 8 September, only to stage equally dramatic returns. 

Miya justified it thus: ‘When Nepali youths fell to bullets, I believed the Prime Minister must resign. Even by 2pm the next day, he still hadn’t stepped down, and at 2:01 I declared I was quitting the party.’ KP Oli resigned shortly after that post, putting Miya in a dilemma. 

Kadariya also deleted his post: ‘Feeling that the student politics of our entire generation has failed, I resign as President of the ANNISU Central Committee.” Later, he admitted he had posted out of fear for his life and felt ashamed for betraying the party. His final clarification: he had not officially resigned and remains committed to the party.

Miya and Kadariya expose the thin ideological fabric of student politics in Nepal. Their resignations were seen by many less as statements of principle than opportunism, and precisely what is wrong with the mainstream parties.

The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) which was the fourth largest in Parliament, also faced criticism for lacking a clear ideological foundation. The RSP’s former Education Minister Sumana Shrestha at first denied rumours she was leaving the party, but resigned anyway the next day declaring: ‘I QUIT’ on social media.  She has also said she is not joining the interim government, it remains to be seen if she goes back on that too.

The RSP’s rapid rise is closely tied to its founder Rabi Lamichhane, whose citizenship and cooperatives scandals and his attacks on media continue to test the party’s credibility. Lamichhane’s jailbreak on the second day of the protests was on his 50th birthday, and on Monday he voluntarily went back behind bars. 

LEADERSHIP TRAPS

In the last two decades, Nepal’s revolving door politics has seen only three protagonists: Deuba, Dahal and Oli. Earlier this month, Oli changed the UML rulebook to make way for his third term as party chief. Deuba has headed the NC since 2016. Dahal has been a permanent fixture as the Maoists’ great helmsman for the past 30 years. 

With the exception of Youth Congress Nepal, the student bodies of UML and the Maoists have not explicitly called for a change in party leadership. ANNISU (Revolutionary)’s Thapa Magar admitted his Maoist party has not held a central committee meeting to discuss succession, but hoped that a democratic route to new leadership could secure the party’s future relevance.

Some within the NC see Gagan Thapa as a natural heir apparent to Deuba. Both rose up the ranks through the party’s student wings and were jailed during the Panchayat. Nawaraj Tripathee of the NC says: “Gagan Thapa is best suited to lead the party at this time. But leaders cannot save parties unless they have institutional frameworks in place for dissenting voices to democratically replace leaders.”

This issue extends beyond the NC. Absolute power within political parties seems to undermine intra-party institutions absolutely. Unchecked leaders have consolidated power in ways that even impact the functioning of Parliament, and hence governance. 

Pyakurel says: “It is evident in last week’s protests and its aftermath that political literacy is not strong in the new generation. Calling politics a dirty game does not encourage meaningful participation. Corruption is corruption, it is not politics. Equating corruption with politics implies that corruption is inherent to politics, but it doesn't have to be so.”

Thapa Magar says: “A party is not just its leader, it is an ideology that its members are committed to. Political parties need to democratise their systems and allow meaningful participation of their members, as some are not in the party to climb up the ranks, but to serve a bigger purpose collectively.”

In the case of Rabi Lamichhane, repeated controversies followed by his victimhood narrative and deflections of accountability have gone unchallenged by his own party leaders, enabling him to act with impunity.

RSP founding member Bipin Acharya says criticism about the party’s ideology is unfounded since democratic governance, inclusion and equity are enshrined in the party doctrine.

“It is not fair to compare Rabi Lamichhane to other party leaders, he has not even completed one term. He is innocent until proven guilty and we trust due process in the new judiciary under the GenZ interim government,” he added about Lamichhane.

Nepal’s political parties have deep roots embedded in Nepali society through a network of institutional bodies and sister organisations,” explains Uddhab Pyakurel. “Yet their relevance now depends on whether they can adapt. To regain public trust, they will need to mobilise these structures in ways that genuinely reflect citizens’ concerns, rather than operate as brokers of political power.” 

Ayusha Chalise is a communication and development researcher specialising in how politics is experienced in the digital space.