A new dawn or another illusion?

The election in Nepal last week was not merely a political exercise; it was an eruption of pent-up fury, a rejection of the old guard that had throttled any semblance of progress for decades. But what now stares back at the country is a stark question: have the people truly changed their future, or simply traded one set of illusions for another?

For years, Nepalis endured the same trio of power brokers-the Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML, and the so-called Communist Party-as these entities pirouetted through government halls, recycled leadership, and maintained an endless cycle of impressive promises and microscopic delivery. Institutions decayed, corruption metastasised, and unemployment worsened further. Youth unemployment stands north of 20 per cent-more than double the national average. Around 1,500 young Nepalis leave their homeland every single day seeking work abroad, a staggering exodus that undermines any future the country might hope to sculpt for itself.

So, when the uprising erupted, when Gen Z and youth frustration boiled over into the streets, it was not just rage-it was despair. Into this void surged Balendra Shah, the rapper-turned-Kathmandu mayor better known as Balen. He became the face of something many claimed they wanted: a break with the past. The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), a party as new as its leader’s rise from outside the entrenched political class, swept to an unprecedented majority: 125 of the 165 first-past-the-post seats. A single party holding nearly two-thirds control in Nepal is almost unheard of, a brutal indictment of the old establishment’s collapse.

Nepal’s new leadership inherited not opportunity but catastrophe. The economic foundation is weak and brittle. Public debt hovers around 40-45 per cent of GDP, but it is the quality of the economy that terrifies: a narrow tax base, enormous dependence on remittances accounting for roughly one-quarter of GDP, and a private sector too fragile to absorb the burgeoning army of young jobseekers. Tourism, once thought a panacea, remains exquisitely sensitive to global disruptions. Agriculture remains archaic and unproductive. Power outages and distribution inefficiencies plague even the most basic enterprises. Crucially, the labour force-the very youth that marched in protests-has no obvious outlet for meaningful employment.

The RSP manifesto, the so-called “2082 Vision”, is nothing if not audacious: 1.2 million jobs in five years; GDP expansion to almost $100 billion; per capita income rising to $3,000; 15,000 megawatts of installed capacity; halving LPG imports; digital services exports of $30 billion in ten years; and the construction or upgrade of 30,000 kilometres of national highways. These numbers are ambitious-some might say visionary-but independent observers see them as fantasy built on the emotional reservoir of hope, not on deeply rooted economic analysis. Nepal’s energy grid cannot reliably distribute current capacity; transportation infrastructure routinely buckles under seasonal rains; foreign direct investment remains underwhelming; and the digital economy is throttled by regulatory unpredictability and an underdeveloped legal regime for international payments.

These are the grim realities. A promise to reduce imports without addressing critical bottlenecks in trade policy or cross-border logistics is a promise destined for frustration. A pledge to build tens of thousands of kilometres of roads without sustained institutional capacity to manage land acquisition, competitive bidding, quality control, and anti-corruption oversight offers little more than ritual ground-breaking and even more ceremonial delays.

This mismatch between aspirational rhetoric and structural capacity points to a far more troubling truth: Nepalis have been deceived not by individuals but by narratives. The uprising was not wrong in its desire for change. But it was driven by visceral emotion-a collective impulse to reject the old, often without a coherent alternative blueprint that could realistically transform the economy and provide stability. Angry protests and street fervour commandeered the engine of politics, and once that engine is running on emotion rather than evidence, it becomes dangerously unpredictable. If Nepal is honest with itself, it must question whether Balen may tread a similar path: overwhelmed by the emotional thunder that elevated him, yet unprepared to deliver the institutional and economic stability the nation desperately needs.

Here is the painful truth: Gen Z politics, fuelled by emotion, creates momentum but not mechanisms. Momentum wins rallies; mechanisms build nations. The current administration’s inexperience-not merely in government, but in managing a modern economy under immense pressure-sets the stage for something grim: a crescendo of disappointed expectations.

Worse still, emotional politics is ripe for exploitation by external actors. Nepal is geostrategically hemmed in by its two giant neighbours. India-the largest source of trade, investment, energy supplies, and transit routes-watches with both interest and caution. China, a stakeholder in multiple infrastructure ventures and a central actor in Belt and Road projects, has its own expectations. Both have engaged with the RSP, seeking alignment with their own strategic interests. But emotion is a currency external powers love to leverage: where national confidence is high and institutional clarity is low, foreign influence finds entry points. A government fuelled by public passion-but lacking robust policy anchors-becomes pliable, attractive, and dangerous. The question is: did the electorate truly choose a path to prosperity, or merely a dream of it? Emotional politics gave the people a mirror-a reflection of their hurt, their labour unrecognised, their aspirations denied. But mirrors do not map roads; they only reveal what is already before us.

Balenomics may become a lesson in hubris-not because the goals are unworthy, but because goals without disciplined implementation, institutional reform, and credible governance remain poetry when the country needs engineering. Nepal needs a systemic recalibration of labour markets, transparent rule-making, competitive commerce, legal certainty for investments, and infrastructural credibility-not just slogans that rouse crowds. When citizens see delays, when promised jobs fail to materialise, when inflation stubbornly erodes incomes, and when foreign capital does not flood in simply because of optimism, the inevitable question will surface: was this all just emotional theatre? If the answer is yes, Nepal risks entering a phase worse than the old guard’s mismanagement: disillusionment with revolt itself.

The writer is a columnist based in Colombo; views are personal