ISTANBUL
Nepalese Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli resigned within 24 hours after mass protests shook the Himalayan nation amid a ban on social media as well as alleged malpractices and corruption.
At least 20 people were shot dead, and nearly 350 others injured.
After a flurry of resignations from his Cabinet following protests that targeted public officials, the 73-year-old Nepalese Communist Party leader, Oli, stepped down after a year in the prime minister’s seat.
Oli’s private residence and the parliament building were among other buildings set on fire.
Soon after Oli resigned, military and civil bureaucracy stepped in, urging calm and a halt to vandalism, as well as dialogue to solve the problems.
“We call on all concerned parties to seek a swift and peaceful resolution through political dialogue," the Nepalese army, security agencies, and civil bureaucracy said in a joint statement.
Nepalese President Ramchandra Paudel is working to initiate a process to form a new government.
It was Oli’s fourth term as prime minister, who was elected in July last year, and the next general elections were scheduled for 2027.
Nepal's parliament has 275 lawmakers, of whom 165 are directly elected, while 110 seats are allotted on the basis of proportional representation.
What led to the latest protests?
Last month, Nepal’s Supreme Court directed the Oli government to make legal arrangements for social media platforms operating in the landlocked nation of 30 million people.
The circulation of news through these media can harm citizens' rights to accurate information, obstruct judicial proceedings, and negatively affect public trust and the credibility of courts, it noted.
The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology gave these platforms seven days to register, which expired last week.
After their resistance to register, the Oli government on Sept. 4 moved to block major social media platforms, including the US company Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram, along with WhatsApp, YouTube, US social media company X, Reddit, and LinkedIn.
The ministry had said the ban would be lifted once the companies registered with the authorities.
Chinese social media company TikTok was exempt from the ban because it had registered with the ministry beforehand.
The blocking of the social media platforms did not go well with the people.
“Social media has been one of the major tools for communication as well as creating content,” Jagdishor Panday, editor of Nepal Diplomat, told Anadolu over the phone from Kathmandu.
“People earn a livelihood by creating content, and those living outside Nepal use these applications to connect with their families back home,” Panday said.
One of the major sources of revenue for the Nepalese government is remittances sent from overseas, as millions of its citizens live and work outside, particularly in the Gulf.
Panday said young people were “fed up with corruption and corrupt governments,” and the ban on social media was a “trigger” for the protests that ousted the Oli government.
‘Promises not kept’
Three main political parties have ruled Nepal in recent decades, one after the other, or in alliance with each other: the Nepali Congress, Oli’s Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist), and the Nepal Communist Party (Maoist).
Sushil Khadka, an activist based in Kathmandu, told Anadolu that at least three reasons are behind the current turmoil in Nepal.
“The first one is political malpractice, and these three parties have been running Nepal as a joint venture,” he said.
They “failed to deliver” on promises made to people, and the “third issue is rampant corruption across all governments,” he said.
So, Khadka argued: “It was long overdue, and there was a long buildup.”
He agreed with Panday that the ban on social media was just a “trigger.”
“These political parties were not punished for their malpractices, and frustrations (among people) propped up in multiple forms over the last two years,” said Khadka, stressing the protests were “completely indigenous.”
‘Change of regimes’ and the question of legitimacy
Bishnu Pokharel, a senior Nepali journalist and researcher, warned that it was a “leaderless movement,” and it was “too early” to predict what would happen next.
Oli “didn’t properly address the bloodshed (and even) offered late condolences,” pointed out Pokharel, who worked for the BBC in Kathmandu.
“If Oli had listened at the appropriate time, all this bloodshed and vandalism would not have happened… Fault is on the government side,” he said.
Pokharel, who is pursuing a doctorate in the Indian capital New Delhi, told Anadolu that the Nepalese youth “have not seen any change on the ground despite regime changes as well as the end of the monarchy.”
“There has been no change for people on the ground, and that is one of the reasons” behind these protests, dubbed the “Gen Z” movement.
Nepal was a monarchy until the first decade of the 21st century.
After years of political tussle and armed conflicts, the monarchy was formally abolished on May 28, 2008, and the first Constituent Assembly declared the foundation of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal.
While President Paudel is working to initiate the process of a new government, Pokharel, however, said: “After the end of the (Oli) government comes the question of legitimacy.”
Pointing to the joint statement of the military and civil bureaucracy, he said many lawmakers have resigned from the parliament.
This leads to a situation where “everybody has to come together for negotiations,” he added.
“All forces should come together… There should be no external force,” he warned, apparently referring to big power rivalry in South Asia, where the influence of China and India is wide.
According to Panday, the editor of Nepal Diplomat, there is “constant pressure from the protesters to dissolve the parliament for a new election.”
“Security agencies are likely to facilitate this new government,” he said, adding that the name of Kathmandu Metropolitan Mayor Balendra Shah is making rounds.
Shah, elected in the 2022 election, “has been a constant support to the demands put forth by the people.”
