Kathmandu quiets for watershed election day

 A Savory Tort Photo Essay

A usually busy intersection in the Thamel tourist district is nearly vacant.
Rickshaws offer transport with most taxis and busses banned. 

Kathamandu, March 6—The streets of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, were strangely quiet and low-key festive today, as the country voted in the first election since "Gen Z" protests brought down the government in September. (All photos by RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.)

Voters queue at a polling place in Kathmandu.

The Army was visible throughout the city, along with a smaller presence of metro police, especially where people queued at polling places. Most businesses are closed, private motor vehicle traffic is banned, and a 9 p.m. curfew is in effect.

Democratic graffiti adorns a school wall.

Despite the fear of unrest that prompted the heavy security, people turned out to walk the streets with their families, smiling as they greeted neighbors. The mood is not jubilant, but neither is it tense. The election is coinciding with the Holi holiday.

A major thoroughfare is nearly deserted.

Of the soldiers I saw on the streets, most looked bored, and some laughed together. The BBC reported one minor incident at a rural polling station east of Kathmandu, where an argument resulted in assault on an election official. Police restored order after firing a shot in the air.

A recreational field, though outfitted for football, draws cricketers.

The capital city was not so serene when protesters toppled the government in September 2025. Seventy-seven people were killed in the unrest, including 22 protestors. Government buildings, including the Supreme Court and Kathmandu district courts, were attacked and burned.

The rides at Ferris Wheel Funpark are still. 

Protestors described themselves as "Gen Z" in a country in which more than half the population was born in the 21st century. The protest movement was remarkable for having been largely coordinated online, especially on the Discord platform. Discord's organization and posting permission system made it resistant to government surveillance and control.

Burned in the 2025 protests, the old Supreme Court building stands vacant.

Partly triggering the protests was a government attempt to shut down communication and social media outlets, including Google's YouTube, and Meta's WhatsApp and Facebook. The government alleged the shutdown was part of a plan to impose online service taxes. But the move followed swirling allegations on social media of government corruption.

Set back from the road and begun already in 2021,
a new Supreme Court building is 85% complete.

Online coordination resulted in real-world assemblies, some peaceful and some violent, and boycotts of schools. The protests might have been sparked by the online shutdowns, but youth anger had reached a boiling point over reported corruption, nepotism, and lack of economic opportunity. 

A medical student in Kathmandu won't vote because his hometown is 16 hours away.

Youth unemployment surpassed 20%, while the national economy was increasingly propped up by fees and remittances derived from emigration, rather than domestic development. Stories of "Nepo Kids," elite youth with political connections flaunting wealth, meanwhile went viral online, stoking resentment. 

The "Supreme Court Annex," foreground, hosts court staff presently;
the new court building rises behind.

Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli was forced to resign in September. In the absence of a working government, the Army took control. Despite some violent clashes, the Army did overall maintain the peace and sought to restore civilian leadership.

The Nepali Bar Building:
Lawyers are helping to restore case files lost in the protests,
including 20,000 files of past and present Supreme Court cases

The military command negotiated with protesters, and as a result, former Supreme Court Justice Sushila Karki was installed as interim prime minister, pending the present elections. Though 73 years old, Karki is highly respected by conservative government supporters and youth protestors for her independence and relative political neutraliity.

Army Headquarters, Kathmandu:
The Army worked to restore civilian government after the protests.

Now voters are choosing 275 representatives for the national House, and its composition will determine the next prime minister and the social and economic direction of the country. 

Amid the 2025 protests, a football friendly between Nepal and Bangladesh
at Dasharath Stadium was canceled.

The ousted Oli is in the running. Some voters are uneasy about the instability on display in September and see a conservative choice as a return to normalcy.

A mural outside Dasharath Stadium depicts Nepali prowess
in a wide range of sports and games.

Oli faces a colorful challenger in Balendra Shah, a once rapper and structural engineer turned politician, and, until he resigned in January, mayor of Kathmandu. The Shah campaign features rap lyrics that bemoan corruption and unemployment, resonating with youth. If 35-year-old Shah outperforms Oli in the election, the result will be viewed as a sea change for Nepal.

In Thamel, election news blares from the wall in a restaurant.

A third candidate with youth appeal is Gagan Kumar Thapa, president of the Nepali congress. Though 49 years old, he has a history of activism and presents as a less volatile option than Shah, who is known to be prickly and ornery toward media.

Though many voters want reform, there is disagreement about how best to accomplish it. Conservatives fear that the youth movement and Shah in particular might be so hellbent on economic improvement as to be willing to cede democracy to incompetence, or worse, authoritarianism. A strand of the protest movement did suggest restoration of the monarchy.

Of the vast slate of candidates up for election, many are first-time politicians, and a third are party independents. For voters' part, a million people, in a country of 29.6 million in sum, have registered to vote for the first time. 

At the same time, there are logistical as well as political challenges to representative democracy in Nepal. The country is three and a half times the size of Switzerland and covers famously mountainous terrain with relatively few roads. In fact, the lack of highway and transportation infrastructure as a prerequisite to economic development is on the youth movement's list of complaints. Ballots must be transported in places for hours by foot and helicopter.

Meanwhile, archaic voting laws require people to vote in their home towns, even if they have long relocated for work. One of the reasons for relative quiet in Kathmandu is that 800,000 people, according to a BBC estimate, have left the city to vote.

In Kathmandu today I met a medical student who had not voted. His hometown is 16 hours away, he said, and he could afford neither the trip nor the time away from studies.

Despite logistical challenges, the Nepali election chief told the BBC that he expects to report results no later than March 9.

Belan Shah's "Nepali Political Rap" at YouTube