{"id":107542,"date":"2026-03-05T06:48:45","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T06:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/?p=107542"},"modified":"2026-03-05T06:48:46","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T06:48:46","slug":"nepali-people-seeking-a-change-in-regime-while-exercising-their-fundamental-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/?p=107542","title":{"rendered":"Nepali People Seeking A Change In Regime While Exercising Their Fundamental Rights."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kathmandu; March 2026<\/strong>: The Nepali people have started exercising their electoral rights that will choose a new parliament in the Himalayan nation since early morning today, nearly six months after a wave of unprecedented youth-led protests and the deaths of \u200b77 people forced Nepal’s then Prime Minister to quit. Perched between China and India, the country of 30 million people has been plagued for decades by political instability, crippling a largely agrarian economy and worsening unemployment – structural issues compounded by rampant corruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The long-festering malaise erupted into street demonstrations last September, triggered by a social media ban, that brought thousands on the streets, leading to clashes \u200band fatalities that forced the resignation of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, voters started flocked to schools, temples and ancient courtyards that have been \u200bconverted into polling booths across the country, with some braving the morning chill in the capital Kathmandu to vote \u2060early. Voting started at 07:00 hours local time (06:30 IST) and will close at 17:00 hours, with counting scheduled to start soon after, according to the \u200bcountry’s election commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials said more than 300,000 security personnel, including the military, had been deployed to ensure peaceful voting in the more than 23,000 polling \u200bbooths across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former PM Oli, who leads the moderate Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist, UML), is once again in the fray, along with more than 3,400 other candidates from 65 parties. They include the country’s oldest party, the Nepali Congress led by 49 years old Gagan Thapa, and the Nepali Communist Party (NCP) comprising former Maoist insurgents who joined mainstream politics. Together with UML, \u200bthese parties have dominated Nepali politics for the last three decades, although the country has seen 32 government changes in the past 35 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But \u200bthe frontrunner for these polls is the 03 years old Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), which has fielded the charismatic rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah as its prime ministerial candidate. The 35 years old former mayor of Nepal’s \u200ccapital Kathmandu \u2060is drawing large crowds, connecting with legions of young voters clamouring for change on the ground and online, even as he takes on Oli, 74, on his home turf in the Jhapa constituency along the Indian border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One voter in Jhapa, named Menuka Chauhan,70, standing in line for more than 40 minutes at a polling booth, said she was worried about her son who was working in Qatar as a security guard, as tensions in the Middle East escalated. “I can\u2019t \u200bsleep at night. I worry all the \u200btime. My son tells me \u2060bombs keep dropping there. I wish there were employment opportunities here”, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Promises of jobs, reining in corruption and improving governance, all demands raised during the September protests, have dominated much of the election campaign. “The election is critical \u200bto address the aspirations of the youths expressed during the Gen Z protests,” said political analyst Puranjan Acharya. “If \u200bthe newly elected \u2060leaders are seen as unfit to do so, there is a risk of further trouble”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some 19 million voters are eligible to cast their ballot for 275 members of parliament through a mixed electoral system, 165 seats in direct first-past-the-post elections and 110 through proportional representation. Early trends are likely to emerge by Friday but \u2060complete results could \u200btake a week or more as counting of proportional representation votes would take time, \u200belection commission officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Voting is not just about sending someone to victory”, Interim Prime Minister Sushila Karki, who took over after Oli, said in a public broadcast this week. “It’s a decision \u200byou make about your future and that of your children”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Team Maverick<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathmandu; March 2026: The Nepali people have started exercising their electoral rights that will choose a new parliament in the Himalayan nation since early morning today, nearly six months after a wave of unprecedented youth-led protests and the deaths of \u200b77 people forced Nepal’s then Prime Minister to quit. Perched between China and India, the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":107543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[79],"post_format":[],"flags":[],"class_list":["post-107542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-saar-nations","tag-saarc-nations"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107544,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107542\/revisions\/107544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/107543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107542"},{"taxonomy":"post_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fpost_format&post=107542"},{"taxonomy":"flags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fflags&post=107542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}