{"id":325218,"date":"2026-03-06T16:11:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T16:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/325218\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T16:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T16:11:12","slug":"the-car-loving-rapper-set-to-win-a-landslide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/325218\/","title":{"rendered":"The car-loving rapper set to win a landslide"},"content":{"rendered":"

A millennial rapper is set to beat a Marxist former prime minister in an election that has pitted Nepal\u2019s younger generations against an entrenched communist old guard.<\/p>\n

Balendra Shah, 35, writes hip-hop songs about his country\u2019s rotten political culture, posts on Instagram instead of giving interviews and wears sunglasses to every rally. <\/p>\n

Vote counting is yet to conclude but on Friday Shah\u2019s Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) was leading in 107 seats out of the 165 that are directly elected, suggesting he will win a landslide and become prime minister. <\/p>\n

\u201cShah carries the hopes of my generation,\u201d Shishir Rijal, an 18-year-old first-time voter and student in Lalitpur, Kathmandu, told The Times. \u201cHe represents both the hope and the change Nepal has long been missing.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Thursday\u2019s election in the landlocked Himalayan nation, Shah \u2014 known to his fans simply as Balen \u2014 represents the hope of the youth who led the student revolution that ousted KP Sharma Oli\u2019s corrupt government in September. <\/p>\n

The uprising, which began as a peaceful protest against a social media ban, spiralled out of control after police open fired on student protesters, killing 19. Oli, the prime minister at the time, resigned in disgrace<\/a> and vanished for weeks, but the subsequent unrest \u2014 Nepal\u2019s most violent in decades<\/a> \u2014 left dozens of others dead and the capital in ruins.<\/p>\n

Underpinning the protests was a resentment, widespread among Gen Z, against Nepal\u2019s \u201cnepo babies\u201d, the children of politicians who flaunted their lavish lifestyles on social media. Nepal is one of Asia\u2019s poorest countries in the world, with a median age of 25.<\/p>\n

Nepal has nearly 19 million people who are registered to vote<\/p>\n

On Thursday, voters thronged the streets of Kathmandu, hopeful for change. \u201cIt\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve seen more women than men coming out to vote,\u201d said Aayush Basyal, a Gen Z student activist who was volunteering at a polling booth in Jorpati, Kathmandu. \u201cIt\u2019s a really unusual thing to witness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of Nepal\u2019s nearly 19 million registered voters place their hopes in Shah, whose RSP party came fourth in 2022\u2019s election and was formed on an anti-corruption platform.<\/p>\n

\"Balendra<\/p>\n

Shah casts his vote<\/p>\n

RITESH SHUKLA\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Shah\u2019s rap songs mock other political parties, criticise Nepal\u2019s entrenched corruption and speak to the sacrifices of ordinary Nepalis and the struggles of the country\u2019s minorities. <\/p>\n

His song Nepal Haseko, which translates as Nepal Smiling, became a Gen Z anthem during last year\u2019s protests and has 11 million YouTube views.<\/p>\n

Please enable cookies and other technologies to view this content. You can update your cookies preferences any time using privacy manager.<\/a><\/p>\n

Enable cookiesAllow cookies once<\/p>\n

In one music video he can be seen dancing on the steps of an ancient stone temple \u2014 a Unesco world heritage site \u2014 in Kathmandu\u2019s Durbar Square. <\/p>\n

At a rally for Shah on Monday in Nepal\u2019s Chitwan district, crazed supporters screamed out the lyrics to an AI-generated campaign song, which translates to: \u201cTime\u2019s up, fake leaders, game over. On March 5 we\u2019ll ring the bell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shah resigned as Kathmandu mayor, a position he held since 2022, in January and announced he would run for the country\u2019s top post as leader of the RSP.<\/p>\n

Critics, however, are concerned that Shah\u2019s campaign won\u2019t be followed by substantive changes and policies. \u201cHe was never the ideal candidate\u201d, says Basyal. \u201cHe\u2019s very charismatic, but the whole protest was about accountability and transparency and he hasn\u2019t held a single press conference. The big concern is that it\u2019s a performative campaign, about making an image for himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Nepali protesters use ChatGPT to pick their new leader<\/a><\/p>\n

Shah has largely shunned interviews in favour of social media posts, many of which come across as impulsive and erratic. The rapper is also known to be a fan of luxury cars: in January a photo of Shah driving a black Land Rover Defender, worth more than 40 million Nepalese rupees (\u00a3203,000), was criticised online. <\/p>\n

He has also faced criticism from Human Rights Watch for using the police to \u201cmistreat the urban poor\u201d, including cracking down on street vendors and slum dwellers.<\/p>\n

Others are worried about his foreign policy approach. A post by Shah on Facebook a few months ago, which has since been deleted, read: \u201cF*** America, F*** India, F*** China.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2023 he banned the screening of Indian films in Kathmandu and hung a map of \u201cGreater Nepal\u201d in his office, which included territories that lie within India\u2019s borders. It was a response to India\u2019s installation of a mural depicting \u201cGreater India\u201d. India is Nepal\u2019s largest trade and investment partner: bilateral trade makes up 15 per cent of the nation\u2019s GDP.<\/p>\n

Shah will also have to contend with the old guard. For more than three decades, Nepal was governed by a revolving series of fragile coalitions led by the same septuagenarian leaders from three main political parties. The system has long enabled a corrupt political elite to entrench itself at the expense of the public.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A voter after casting her ballot on Thursday<\/p>\n

PRABIN RANABHAT\/AFP<\/p>\n

Oli of the communist CPN-UML, who has been prime minister four times and was ousted in September, is competing against Shah in the constituency Jhapa-5. The region has for years been a stronghold for Oli\u2019s party. Also running again is Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda, three-time prime minister, an ex-guerrilla fighter and leader of the CPN (Maoist Centre), another communist party.<\/p>\n

For Oli\u2019s close circle, victory for Shah is far from a foregone conclusion. Bhola Nath Pokhrel, a central committee member of UML, Oli\u2019s party, said: \u201cThe hatred against KP Oli is largely social media propaganda created by certain agents misusing social media.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inside Jhapa-5, voters were less sure. \u201cI believe that [Oli] should have stepped down from his position and apologised for the mistakes made during the protests,\u201d Dinesh Ojha, 58, said. \u201cThe people voting in Jhapa-5 are eager to support a new candidate and want to see the change that this new leadership could bring to the country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A millennial rapper is set to beat a Marxist former prime minister in an election that has pitted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-325218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}