There are many signs of Nepal’s democratic decay, but the one that has made the stench unbearable in recent weeks is the agreement between the three political alpha males to divide up the five-year term of prime minister between themselves.
That <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/new-chapter-in-nepal-political-saga/">backroom deal </a>was not what Nepalis voted for in 2022. Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal of the Maoist Centre (MC) has so far led three coalitions in two months: one with the Nepali Congress (NC) to fight elections, another with the UML to be prime minister himself, and then breaking that off to go back to the NC for the president’s election on 9 March.
Such <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/the-race-for-shital-nibas/">do-or-die desperation to get an expedient candidate</a> for a ceremonial post has shown just how deep the rot is. This graft-ridden male gerontocracy will do anything to cling to power through the skin of its teeth, the country be damned.
The recklessness does not just undermine Nepal’s hard-won democracy, but also invites instability and a dangerous drift towards extremism. It ignores the fact that only 61% of eligible voters bothered to cast their ballots last year with the message of ‘none-of-the above’. And among those who voted, most young Nepalis went for the independents.
The alternative RSP and non-party mayors served as an effective safety valve to secure the democratic system, and protect &nbsp;traditional parties. It temporarily allayed the deep disillusionment of voters, providing some hope that change was possible. &nbsp;
Those hopes have now been dashed with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/for-whom-the-bell-tolls/">the RSP showing itself to be like the rest</a>. Although this may give comfort to Nepal’s serial politicians, it also shortens society’s frustration fuse. Nepal’s overseas workers are already threatening to stop sending money home unless they are allowed to vote, and politicians behave themselves.
&nbsp;None of the main parties, civil society and activists have spoken up against <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/rsp-quits-nepal-coalition/">populist media-bashing by RSP leader Rabi Lamichhane</a>. The parties may be relieved that blaming the messenger deflected some of the public anger against them, and kleptocrats could be glad that the media that has exposed their wrongdoings is being targeted for a change.
&nbsp;The superstructure of the Nepali state was already wobbly because its executive, legislative and judicial pillars were weakened. The media's fourth pillar, which had been defending democracy by using its <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/press-for-people/">constitutional right for press freedom</a>, has also been enfeebled.
It is easy to blame <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/geopolitical-tectonics/">geopolitics</a>: New Delhi’s domineering role in determining the course of Nepali politics, or the reverberations in Kathmandu of global Sino-US rivalry. But instability and external interference is a chicken-or-egg: do foreign powers interfere in Nepal because the government is weak, or does foreign interference weaken the government?
This being Nepal, things could change after the presidential election on 9 March, and the NC once again ditches the MC to lead the government. We will not be surprised if that happens.
It is hard to say who won and who lost in this see-saw politics. It seemed like KPO had outsmarted SBD, but then PKD suddenly switched sides, and KPO wooed MKN with presidentship. The 7-party coalition has been replaced with an 8-party one. Winners may not stay winners for long.
&nbsp;But in the end, everyone lost. And by far the biggest loss is to Nepal’s democracy. &nbsp;

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Premiership in instalments

<figure><img width="2048" height="1366" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230228150240/63fe128b9c7e80680e0da52cjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Ram Chandra Poudel, the Nepali Congress nominee for president, files his candidacy alongside NC chair Sher Bahadur Deuba and Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Saturday. Photos: GOPEN RAI</figcaption></figure>Nepal’s third president is most likely going to be Ram Chandra Paudel of the Nepali Congress (NC), but this will unravel the current six-party ruling coalition.The back-stabbing, power-sharing promises and backroom deals in the run-up to elections on 9 March have also shown that Nepal’s politics is still an opaque gerontocratic patriarchy in which a handful of superannuated men shuffle the cards every now and then.On Saturday, the UML also put forward its own presidential candidate: former speaker Subhas Nembang. But given the arithmetic of the new political alignment, Paudel’s win appears assured.The long saga that led to Paudel’s candidacy was the result of a triangular fight between the NC, the UML and the Maoist parties which have ruled Nepal in unstable coalitions since the end of the insurgency in 2006. <figure><img width="2048" height="1366" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230228150240/63fe128f9c7e80680e0da52djpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Being the largest party in Parliament, the NC had been outwitted by the UML (the second largest party) which broke an electoral partnership with the Maoists (the third largest in the House). The fact that the post of a ceremonial president was deemed so politically critical for all three parties shows just how cynical Nepali politics has become — all three need a pliant president in order to use the constitutional powers of the office for their own ends.All the main leaders in the fray: Ram Chandra Paudel and Sher Bahadur Deuba, K P Oli of the UML, Pushpa Kamal Dahal of the Maoists, the CPN (Unified Socialist) Madhav Kumar Nepal, Upendra Yadav of the JSP and Mahanta Thakur of the LSP have all been in an out of government for the past 17 years.Paudel, Deuba, Nepal, Oli and Thakur are all above 70 and have been in active politics in Nepal for even longer. One could say that Nepal is in the state it is in because of these senior politicians, yet they refuse to let go.This is in direct contravention of the strongest message of elections in 2022 in which Nepali voters made their preference for a generational change in leadership and a departure from traditional politics felt. Although the new independent RSP has 19 seats in Parliament, the power play at the top is following the old way of doing things.  <img width="2048" height="1366" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230228150240/63fe12939c7e80680e0da52ejpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="2048" height="1366" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230228150240/63fe12979c7e80680e0da52fjpeg.jpg" alt="">The story so far goes like this:2020: The Nepal Communist Party (formed with the unity of the Maoist Centre and UML after the 2017 elections) starts falling apart due to a power struggle between Pushpa Kamal Dahal and K P Oli2021: Oli tries to dissolve Parliament but the Supreme Court blocks his move, and the NCP is bifurcated again into its constituent parties. Soon after, the UML also split.2022: The Maoists and NC form an electoral alliance for local, provincial and federal elections. The NC comes out as the first party, the UML second and the Maoists third. The fourth place is taken by the RSP which was formed only 5 months before editions. December 2022: The UML’s Oli pulls a fast one by proposing Dahal as prime minister in a 7-party coalition that includes the RSP and the royal-right RPP. In return, Oli secures an agreement from Dahal to reserve the presidency for the UML, and for Oli to take over as PM after 2.5 years. The NC is left out in the cold.January 2023: The NC and the Maoists realise that the UML will have the presidency, prime ministership, house speaker and other posts by 2025. The NC, therefore, gives a vote of confidence to Dahal in Parliament, meaning there is no opposition. The NC proposes that Dahal can remain prime minister for five years in return for its candidate to be president.February 2023: Dahal changes his tune and starts stressing that the president should be a “consensus candidate” even as there is a slew of high-level visits by Indian and American officials.18 February: Oli makes a last-ditch attempt to outwit Dahal by proposing Madhav Kumar Nepal as president so the 7-party coalition remains intact, and the NC continues to be sidelined.  24 February: Oli’s ploy does not work as Dahal is convinced by Deuba and NC to allow him to be prime minister for most of his tenure in return for NC’s candidate to be president and the JSP to have the vice-presidency.This being Nepal, anything can still happen till the 9 March election for president, and Oli could still pull a habit out of the hat. But it looks like a foregone conclusion that Ram Chandra Paudel will be the third president of Nepal. <img width="2048" height="1366" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230228150240/63fe129b9c7e80680e0da530jpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="2048" height="1366" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230228150240/63fe129f9c7e80680e0da531jpeg.jpg" alt="">The eight parties including the NC and Maoists that backed the deal are now on track to replace the 7-party coalition in the government. Some of the parties in the new lineup are already in the current coalition, although the UML, RSP and RPP are likely to stay in the opposition. The UML Central Committee Secretariat meeting on Saturday decided not to leave the 7-party coalition just yet, saying that it was just proposing Nembang as its candidate as power the earlier agreement with the Maoists. "The ruling coalition still exists. The 8-party alliance has not been formed, there is nothing in writing yet. Anything can happen between now and 9 March," says UML spokesperson Prithvi Subba Gurung. The elephants in the room are Nepal’s two big neighbours and the United States. The Chinese have made no secret that they would like the UML and Maoists to stay united, and in fact, its ambassador in Kathmandu lobbied to prevent the NCP from splitting in 2021.  Intensifying Sino-American rivalry means Washington would like to counter that by keeping the NC and the Maoists together - however different the ideologies of the left and right-wing parties may be. Strategically, New Delhi would go along with the American strategy. If no candidate gets a majority in the 9 March voting, a re-election will be held on 10 March. The vice presidential election will be held on 17 March. The Election Commission is readying for the election in the Parliament premises in New Baneswor.  Of 884 voters in the electoral college who will cast their ballots for the president and vice-president, 334 are from the federal House of Representatives and 550 from provincial assemblies. The votes are weighted with members of the federal parliament having 79 points for a total of 26,400, while provincial assemblies get 48 points each for 26,386 votes.  "It is good that a former prime minister is not a candidate, and also the NC and UML have put forward respectable candidates," says former Nepali ambassador to India Nilamber Acharya. "However, the way this process has been conducted it portends more instability because of the bad blood, suspicion, and distrust."

New chapter in Nepal political saga

<figure><img width="1235" height="585" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230228150240/63fe125a9c7e80680e0da51ajpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>So fierce is the competition between Nepal’s three major parties to have a say in who the next ceremonial president is that it is threatening to break the governing coalition.
Which is puzzling, why are they concerned about a post that is largely symbolic and with residual constitutional powers? Because all the three parties have since 2017 misused (or been the victims of) the misuse of presidential powers. 
On Saturday, 25 February political parties will officially register their candidates for the presidential election set to take place on 9 March. There are many trial balloons being floated with names of potential candidates which include former prime ministers, ministers, top party leadership, as well as non-partisan figures.
From the Nepali Congress (NC) the names floating around include Ram Chandra Paudel, Krishna Prasad Sitaula, and even former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba himself. Possible candidates from the UML include Ishwar Pokharel, Subhas Chandra Nembang, Bishnu Rimal, and Asta Laxmi Shakya.
CPN-Unified Socialist Chair Madhav Kumar Nepal as well as Nepal Socialist Party leader Baburam Bhattarai’s names have also come up in connection with the presidency. Mahanta Thakur of the Loktantrik Samajwadi Party has also been proposed as a candidate.
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal is in the horns of a dilemma because he has promised the presidency to the NC, UML as well as his own party’s leaders. This means he is bound to disappoint and make enemies of everyone who does not make it to Shital Nibas on 9 March. 
Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/constitutional-president/">Constitutional President</a>, Editorial
The decision should have been simple. On 25 December, Dahal broke his party’s alliance with the NC and erstwhile Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to form a coalition with the UML and five other parties, in return for the UML getting the presidency. 
But Sher Bahadur Deuba threw a spanner in the works when he gave his party’s vote of confidence to Dahal on 10 January, keeping the door open for future political collaboration between the NC and Dahal’s Maoist Centre (MC).
And while the prime minister has maintained that his coalition will remain intact beyond 9 March, he has refused to guarantee a UML candidate for head of state.
“The ground reality has shifted between then and now,” spokesperson Krishna Bahadur Mahara said following the MC’s meeting to discuss the presidential election on Monday. 
The NC’s Deuba, Paudel, Sitaula, Gagan Thapa, and Bimalendra Nidhi have visited Dahal many times, apparently to assure him that he will get to be prime minister for five years if the NC gets the presidency.
Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/geopolitical-tectonics/">Geopolitical tectonics</a>, Editorial
This a lollipop for Dahal, who would otherwise have to rotate prime ministership with Oli. And the UML would get to be all-powerful if it also gets to have a president as well as speaker, prime minister, and other heads of constitutional bodies.
The Maoists have maintained that it will seek a ‘national consensus’ in appointing the next head of state, which is another way of saying ‘anyone but a UML candidate’. 
But while allying with the NC might mean that Dahal can avoid a power imbalance with the UML, Dahal has concerns that NC may pull the rug before his tenure runs out. Multiple high-ranking Indian and US officials have made visits to Nepal in the days leading up to the presidential election, and Dahal suspects that they do not like Communists in general.
Dahal and Oli have also been meeting frequently to discuss the presidential election, and Oli has dangled a clever carrot: proposing Madhav Nepal of the CPN-US as a candidate. Nepal issued a coy response about the proposal, but has made it known he will be happy to step in. This puts Dahal in a dilemma, since he has already indicated to the NC that he is willing to make a deal.
If no party gets a simple majority in the votes on 9 March, a re-election will be held on 10 March. The election for vice president will be held on 17 March. The Election Commission is readying for the election in the Parliament premises in New Baneswor. 
There are 884 voters in the electoral college who will cast their ballots, of which 334 are from the federal House of Representatives and 550 from provincial assemblies. The votes will be weighted with federal parliament members getting 79 points to make 26,400 points and provincial assemblies getting 48 points each to make 26,386 votes.  
Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/an-unceremonious-president/"> An unceremonious President</a>, Editorial

Shristi Karki

The race for Shital Nibas

Nepal’s Gurkha soldiers have a well-deserved reputation worldwide for uncommon valour and loyalty. However, what happened in Hawaii in 1986 and the long struggle for fair pay and pension shows that the formidable fighters from Nepal also do not tolerate injustice. The Hong Kong-based 1st Battalion of the 7th Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Gurkha Rifles was in Hawaii for jungle warfare training exercises at the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center when they beat up their commanding officer, Major Corin Pearce. &nbsp;&nbsp; The Gurkhas said Pearce had insulted them, and 111 soldiers were dismissed. Pearce suffered broken ribs and a head injury, and was himself also discharged. The incident got worldwide publicity and enforced the belief that the Nepalis were not treated fairly in the British Army. It also led some retired soldiers to begin a decades-long struggle for compensation at par with their British peers.&nbsp; Retired British Gurkha soldier Shankar Rai in his book Triumph and Tears revisits the Hawaii incident which he witnessed, and also his experience in the Falkland Islands/Malvinas war in 1982.&nbsp; He has lots of grievances: unequal treatment and injustice from the British Army towards himself and his comrades. This is an indignant and disillusioned account of the good, the bad and the ugly of being a British Gurkha, which he says let him down despite his service and belief in it.&nbsp; The book could also be a cautionary tale of how one person on a power-trip can tarnish two centuries of the shared history of Nepal and the UK, as well as ruin the lives of those involved. It also is proof that loyalty should never be taken for granted. Four years after defeating the Argentinians in the Falklands, several companies and platoons of Gurkha rifles were stationed in Hawaii in 1986 for joint US-UK ‘Exercise Union Pacific’ military exercises. The goal was to ‘perfect the art of marine warfare in collaboration with the US Marine Force’. The rules were that a British Gurkha company commander needed to have the rank of major and pass a Nepali language test. Captain Pearce was the son-in-law of a British Brigadier on extra-regiment employment, and this rule was waived. He was appointed Acting Major. Pearce didn’t bother to learn Nepali language or culture, and from Rai’s account took every chance to belittle and embarrass the Gurkhas as poor, stupid, rude, backward, and lucky to be there. He writes: ‘After Captain Pearce reached Hawaii, he began to project himself as a master and the Gurkhas as servants, to show off to the Americans.’ The author also recounts other slights, such as only receiving a fourth of the rations they were due during hard training, being forced to train even when some of the soldiers had high fever, and claims to have ‘civilised’ the Nepalis.&nbsp; Pearce had been to eastern Nepal before the training and seen the grinding poverty. He kept telling the Gurkhas how lucky they were to be in the job, and that they were making ‘more money than Nepal’s prime minister’. During the final farewell party in Hawaii, Pearce set up tables to form a saluting platform, and asked the Gurkha pipe and drum band to march around him while playing. The enraged soldiers could not take it anymore, and after the party an inebriated group ran Captains Pearce and Chandra Kumar Pradhan out of their tents and beat them up. Both officers broke ribs, and the major needed 15 stitches on his head. ‘This sorry and unseemly episode is considered to have been entirely at odds with the Brigade of Gurkhas’ tradition of loyalty and gallant service in the British Army. It is regarded as an isolated and untypical event, which will not be permitted to detract from the high esteem in which the Brigade is held,’ reads the report of an investigation. Most of the 1/7 company soldiers were dismissed whether they had been involved in the assault or not. The author describes the shame that followed, with dismissed soldiers returning to Nepal with lost face.&nbsp; ‘I burned with humiliation, and life scared me,’ writes the author, whose father told him that he was ashamed to call him his son. ‘Many of my friends’ girlfriends left them and married other people. Rifleman Khem Gurung (21162015) of Itahari committed suicide,’ writes Rai, adding that those dismissed were blacklisted, and could not get other jobs.&nbsp; They tried to pursue legal action against the British Government, but backed down when they could not afford expensive hotshot lawyers, and would not have the money to cover the British government’s legal fees in the likely case of a loss in court. Gurkhas who had served for four years in the UK were allowed to move there, an option that many of those dismissed in the Hawaii incident took, including the author, who now lives in Oxford. Rai pours out his hurt and emotion in the book. Towards the end, he writes: ‘I depend on small jobs for livelihood. In the remaining time, I actively raise the issue of the victims of the Hawaii incident. We are burdened with insults, hatred, and contempt for a lifetime. It was harsher than a court martial, too heavy to bear.’ The is a slim book, and is a quick, engaging read of an incident 30 years ago, and Rai writes with a soldier’s precision. Even though the anger shows even after all these years, there is no over-dramatisation in the narrative.&nbsp; The first part of the book is about sailing across the South Atlantic in the QEII, which had been converted into a troop ship to take the Gurkhas to war. The soldiers from landlocked Nepal were mostly sea-sick, but were happy to get two cans of beer a day. Barclays Bank even had a branch on board. Rai’s descriptions of the friendships he developed in the Company and on the battlefield are poignant. They braved Argentinian bombs, dug trenches and fought through the rain in the Southern Hemisphere winter. There are vignettes of sharing tea with fellow Nepalis, seeing comrades fall, and finding pictures of wives and children in the pockets of dead young Argentine soldiers. Behind the prestige, honour and myths of being a Gurkha soldier, it seems this is just another job with nepotism, horrible bosses and bad pay. But such is the desperation that up to 20,000 young Nepalis still apply for 300 openings in the British Army every year. &nbsp;&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251227041256_694a253e782c83b0bf89fc1b9840b0ade3f7beca2d0b01dbc4fcd3e63c207f50.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251227041256_694a253e782c83b0bf89fc1b9840b0ade3f7beca2d0b01dbc4fcd3e63c207f50" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Triumph and tears book details NT"> </figure>

Not taking loyalty for granted

After a week of to-and-fro that culminated in all-night bargaining, two populist young figures in Nepali politics agreed at 4AM on Sunday to join forces ahead of elections in March. Rabi Lamichhane of the RSP, who came out of jail a week ago, has forged an alliance with Kathmandu mayor Balen Shah. Both are keen to ride on the GenZ wave that radically changed the direction of Nepal’s politics that has been dominated by three mainstream parties for the past three decades. Under the 7-point deal, Lamichhane will still head the RSP, while Shah has been promised prime ministership if the party wins a majority in the federal elections. Shah will also be the parliamentary party leader. The RSP will keep its name and election symbol. “Agreements must be made not on the basis of what leaders want, but on what the country needs,” Lamichhane wrote on social media announcing the alliance. The RSP chair is said to have put his own prime ministerial aspirations on hold to ensure the Kathmandu Mayor's support for the March polls. This is an alliance of convenience. Lamichhane requires the backing from Shah’s youth voters to face the legacy parties, while the mayor needs a political platform. Ultimately the prospect of leading not just Kathmandu but Nepal itself appears to have been the deciding factor for Balen Shah. The Kathmandu mayor is reportedly keen to contest the election from Jhapa against former prime minister K P Oli in his constituency.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251228041212_1b26fd7f14e418a9bdb827a7b733914c08183c36b4a93694fc1aefda9f45d85a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251228041212_1b26fd7f14e418a9bdb827a7b733914c08183c36b4a93694fc1aefda9f45d85a" data-rendition-name="original" width="900" height="900" loading="lazy" alt="Balen-Rabi alliance"> <figcaption>Photo: BALEN SHAH, RABI LAMICHHANE / FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>  The two have much in common. Lamichhane, a former tv anchor, returned from the United States and launched the RSP as an alternative party four months before elections in 2022. He served as Home Minister twice in Pushpa Kamal Dahal's coalition government before being jailed for defrauding cooperatives depositers. He made a jail break during the September protests, returned to prison voluntarily, and was released on bail last week. Balen Shah stood as an independent candidate for mayor of Kathmandu in local elections in 2022, and was catapulted to victory because of anti-incumbent protest votes among urban youth.&nbsp; Both campaigned on social media, pushing a populist anti-corruption agenda and against the governance failure of the three establishment parties — the same logic that drove the GenZ protests in September that escalated into violence and brought down the UML-NC coalition. Even as government buildings smouldered on 10 September, GenZ members were strongly urging Balen Shah to be the interim prime minister, but when he declined they voted on Discord for former chief justice Sushila Karki.&nbsp; With just over two months to go for elections on 5 March, Prime Minister Karki has been trying desperately to get the mainstream parties on board. She has met twice with the top leaders of the UML, NC and the NCP. All three parties have been dealing with internal power struggles, and the UML appears to be the most reluctant to face elections.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251228051212_d42944e014b278d6864270b74f924ac842d6f7a68d5bd6817148d120522ba60b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251228051212_d42944e014b278d6864270b74f924ac842d6f7a68d5bd6817148d120522ba60b" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Sushila Karki with political leaders"> <figcaption>Prime Minister Sushila Karki has been meeting with leaders of the mainstream parties to get them on board for the election. Photo: PMO</figcaption> </figure>  The UML’s former prime minister K P Oli has refused summons by the Judicial Inquiry Commission charged with investigating the massacre of protesters on 8 September and the arson and vandalism the next day. Then home minister Ramesh Lekhak is scheduled to give his deposition to the Commission this week. The legacy parties appear to be taking the threat from the Rabi-Balen partnership strongly, and have been trying to forge an electoral alliance so they do not compete against each other.&nbsp; They are relying on traditional vote banks among the rural electorate, and calculate that alternative forces will cancel themselves out. They could also be hoping that Balen Shah’s erratic behaviour and Rabi Lamichhane’s prison conviction will put voters off. A total of 837,094 first-time voters have been registered in Nepal ahead of the elections.&nbsp; The Kathmandu mayor is an engineer and rap artist, and had till now been reclusive, preferring to post on social media rather than face the press. His late-night online posts have been impulsive: like the one urging that Singha Darbar be burnt down, or another one recently in which he used the f-word against the US, China, India and the mainstream parties. He later deleted both posts.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251228041212_a2f87881e36fb40b82bf77e1b07003aaf36b91e2a9eb5da096f1e562654c31e3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20251228041212_a2f87881e36fb40b82bf77e1b07003aaf36b91e2a9eb5da096f1e562654c31e3" data-rendition-name="original" width="1112" height="1440" loading="lazy" alt="Balen Rabi agreement NT"> <figcaption>The seven-point agreement between Shah and Lamichhane. </figcaption> </figure>  Lamichane and Shah had also been negotiating with Energy Minister Kulman Ghising’s newly-forced Ujyalo Nepal Party, but the bargaining did not go well because Ghising refused to fight elections under the RSP banner. If the three had been successful in coming together, it would have been a formidable alliance. There are misgivings about the RSP-Balen Shah deal, even among some GenZ who see the two prominent men dividing up the power structure as just the kind of political culture they wanted to reform. Many are already predicting exactly the kind of clash of egos between the two alpha males that characterised Nepali politics since the restoration of democracy in 1990. In the coming days, as with most political change in Nepal, there will be much speculation about the geopolitics behind the Rabi-Balen deal. Balen Shah’s angry post against India-US-China as well as his past nationalistic pronouncements on Nepal’s territorial dispute with India over Kalapani will be recalled, while Beijing has misgivings about the antecedents of some GenZ figures. Dharan-mayor Harka Sampang, who has also formed his own political party, has already pronounced the Rabi-Balen deal as being “foreign backed”.

Old vs New in Nepal in 2026

Everyone in the world is running some kind of race. Some chase recognition. Some chase money. Others run simply to stay ahead of others. But there are some who run for others. They are not trying to overtake anyone, they do not do it for fame, they are not getting paid to do it. But they run to pay for the upliftment of those less privileged. Bal Joshi, 41, is originally from Surkhet. His father was involved in the democratic movement during the days of absolute monarchy and he remembers frequent police searches of the house. And with his father in hiding, the young Joshi had to take care of the family. When the family’s small shop failed, his mother took the young Bal and his brother back to the village, and that is where he completed his education, walking four hours roundtrip every day between home and school. He ran most of the way, and without realising it he has been running ever since. Life was hard. Rent, food, education. His mother struggled constantly. There were days when there was no money even to buy kerosene for the stove. At one point, he sold his calculator, worth Rs 300, for just Rs 80 to get by.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251229031252_edb16b64a3d362a8dc86870bfa5deaad03a84e67d47f37cfd0bb5a8e584691fe.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251229031252_edb16b64a3d362a8dc86870bfa5deaad03a84e67d47f37cfd0bb5a8e584691fe" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Running for dear life NT"> </figure>  At 15, Joshi moved to Nepalganj to continue his education. He initially stayed with his uncles, but eventually began living on his own. The transition to city life was difficult, and he experienced significant economic hardship while trying to pursue his studies. There were times when he struggled to meet basic needs, and at one point he sold his calculator just to get by. When he was 17, after hearing that his father was seriously ill, Joshi travelled to Gujarat to bring him back home. His father died soon after, and Joshi took on responsibility for supporting his family. It was his mother who taught him that despite scarcity, life had to be lived with dignity. Joshi started working at a newspaper at the age of 16 as a proofreader, and later became a journalist. During the Maoist war when children were being orphaned as a result of violence by both sides, he became active in the Sahara Group, and at 19, he began managing an orphanage that took in conflict-affected children. In Bajhang, after the army killed a man on suspicion of being a Maoist, his wife jumped into the Seti River and ended her life. Their two children were taken into army custody. During the rescue process, Joshi met Sunaina Adhikari of the ICRC and back in Nepalganj they decided to get married. The conflict was still raging in western Nepal in 2005, when Joshi went to the United States. In Maryland, he initially worked at a Bengali-owned Subway outlet, spending long hours on his feet behind the counter. He changed jobs frequently, financing his education along the way, and ultimately graduated with a degree in finance in 2008. He joined Hancock Whitney Bank in Texas, and has risen up the ranks to be Senior Vice President. A colleague inspired him to run as a way to stay healthy. But it soon turned into something more meaningful — running more than a dozen 50km marathons for charity.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251229031252_165a6d935860cf6707178aa2ac7395733883158f425bbe0ebed125529d601f61.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251229031252_165a6d935860cf6707178aa2ac7395733883158f425bbe0ebed125529d601f61" data-rendition-name="original" width="999" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="Running for dear life NT"> </figure>  Last year, Joshi returned to Nepal to run the Everest Marathon, and raised $42,000 which he donated to <a href="https://onestepfoundation.org/" target="_blank">One Step Foundation</a> which works on health care, child welfare and cultural preservation in Nepal and around the world. In June this year, Joshi and his family climbed Kilimanjaro, raising $19,000 for 80 HIV-affected orphaned children in Tanzania. During the Diwali festival he ran 220km in Nevada’s Red Canyon and raised $25,000 for cataract surgeries through the the <a href="https://www.theruitfoundation.org/" target="_blank">Ruit Foundation</a> in Nepal for cataract surgeries.&nbsp; Joshi does not run competitions, and is not trying to break any records. His motto is: “My race, my pace.”&nbsp; Turning his childhood scarcity into helping others, he says: “We all share sunlight, rain, air, and soil, nothing is truly just your own. I grew up without shoes, and I am fortunate to be able to distribute shoes to those who walk barefoot.” We ask Bal Joshi what (and where) next? His answer: the <a href="https://www.worldmarathonchallenge.com/" target="_blank">World Marathon Challenge</a> that will go around the world to run seven marathons in seven continents in seven days beginning in Antarctica at end-January.&nbsp; Joshi aims to run wearing the daura suruwal and Nepal’s flag as to show where he comes from, and how far in life he has come.

Running for dear life

A day after Rabi Lamichhane and Balen Shah <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/old-vs-new-in-nepal-in-2026-z6l4fgrd">came together to form an electoral alliance</a>, Kulman Ghising has also joined forces with the two leaders, merging his Ujyalo Nepal Party with the RSP.&nbsp; Following last-minute negotiations before Monday’s midnight deadline for parties to file their list of candidates for the Proportional Representation (PR) seats, Lamichhane and Ujyalo Nepal chair Anup Kumar Upadhyay signed a seven-point agreement to unify the two parties, with Balen Shah as witness.&nbsp; Per the deal, Ghising will be the vice-chair of the RSP, joining DP Aryal and Swarnim Wagle as the party’s seconds-in-command. The earlier agreement between Lamichhane and Shah retained Lamichhane as RSP chief, and promised Shah prime ministership if the party wins a majority in Parliament in March.&nbsp; Ghising’s team reportedly has a 17% share on the list of PR candidates filed by the RSP at the Election Commission. Balen has also fielded his own picks, and together the party has the likes of cricketer Gyandenra Malla, actress Reema Biswokarma, rights activist Mohna Ansari, climate activist Tashi Lhazom, and singer Prakash Saput as PR candidates. Ghising had held multiple rounds of talks with the RSP chair and the Kathmandu Mayor to discuss possible collaborations, but had failed to reach a power-sharing agreement. On Monday, Ghising had met with Lamichhane heeding a last-ditch effort from GenZ leaders, in particular Sudan Gurung, as they tried for the final time to get the interim Minister on board with Lamichhane and Shah before the PR list submission deadline.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025123004128_99e23ae7b6a042e71d271e3e74f7527086a7bb55779e6781bc9e7b711c8303e7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2025123004128_99e23ae7b6a042e71d271e3e74f7527086a7bb55779e6781bc9e7b711c8303e7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1595" height="1087" loading="lazy" alt="Sudan Kulman Balen"> <figcaption>Photo: SUDAN GURUNG / FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025123004128_d9f530704ab4c6e27eebf51f8e9fb55fed1d4281c99d089d06455cc7448bfda7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2025123004128_d9f530704ab4c6e27eebf51f8e9fb55fed1d4281c99d089d06455cc7448bfda7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1026" height="1084" loading="lazy" alt="Balen and Sudan NT"> <figcaption>Photo: BALEN SHAH / FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>  The three are now set to make a formidable team to challenge mainstream parties at the polls. News of this alliance has been welcome to Nepalis who are looking for any alternatives to break the stronghold of the Oli-Deuba-Dahal trio over Nepali politics in recent history.&nbsp; But they will also carry each other’s baggage.&nbsp; Lamichhane, who was jailed for defrauding cooperatives depositors last year, was welcomed back as RSP party chair with open arms after he was released on bail last week. And while he has maintained his base of loyal supporters, he was subject to widespread criticism after he walked out of detention amid the jailbreak during the September protests, prompting his eventual voluntary return to prison.&nbsp; His party’s silencing and expulsion of critics within the RSP has also drawn direct comparison with the leadership structure of Nepal’s mainstream parties. Prominent leaders like Sumana Shrestha have left the party over disagreements with leadership.&nbsp; Meanwhile, Balen’s impassioned campaign resonated with Nepalis disillusioned with establishment leaders during the 2022 election and made him mayor of Kathmandu. The mayor’s direct, no-holds-barred style of communication and commentary has attained him much support beyond his constituency.&nbsp; But his unyielding, often unempathetic leadership style and policies— like his dismissal of street vendors and informal businesses during his drive to free up Kathmandu’s footpaths— have also earned him detractors. His recent outburst on social media in November that included expletives against both of Nepal’s neighbours and the US, as well as Nepal’s three main parties and the RSP was also widely criticised.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251230041212_fc2088daf32bac93541ebf25ca07725d75a721ae83440749ac8fa09d8fe308f2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20251230041212_fc2088daf32bac93541ebf25ca07725d75a721ae83440749ac8fa09d8fe308f2" data-rendition-name="original" width="890" height="1255" loading="lazy" alt="Agreement NT"> <figcaption>The seven-point agreement between RSP and Ujyalo Nepal Party.</figcaption> </figure>  Ghising, credited with ending Nepal’s prolonged load-shedding during his tenure as the chief of Nepal Electricity Authority, has a reputation of getting the job done. His public goodwill earned him a seat on Prime Minister Sushila Karki’s interim Cabinet following the youth protest.&nbsp; But he has also been under scrutiny for funds misappropriation as well as controversial power purchase agreements during his tenure as NEA chief. Ghising had foregone the leadership position at his Ujyalo party, preferring to play the role of patron until closer to the election date, but was nonetheless criticised for his political and electoral aspirations while being a member of the transitional government. It now remains to be seen if and when Ghising will step away from his position in the interim Cabinet and begin campaigning with his new partners.&nbsp; As it stands, the involvement of prominent GenZ figures in bringing together Ghising, Shah, and Lamichhane has established youth leaders as major players in Nepal’s post-September political landscape. These leaders will have significant pull with young and first-time voters. But not all young leaders are impressed with this new triumvirate. Some have pointed out that the unity between these three leaders is no different from the political opportunism and quid-pro-quo power-sharing culture established and followed by Nepal’s mainstream leadership for the last three decades which culminated into the GenZ movement of September.