Nepal’s new era begins as Balen to become youngest PM

Kathmandu: Balendra Shah ‘Balen’ was on Thursday elected as the leader of the Parliamentary party of the Rastriya Swatantra Party, paving his way to become Nepal’s youngest elected prime minister on Friday.

The 35-year-old rapper-turned-politician senior leader of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), which won a landslide victory in the March 5 poll, will also be the first person from the Madhes region to hold the top executive post in the country.

Nepal chose fresher Balendra Shah ‘Balen’ – popular only as Balen – and his RSP to form the next government decimating the traditional parties in the first general elections since last year’s violent Gen Z protests that sought generational change and corruption-free regime.

The RSP that had projected Balen as the prime ministerial candidate, secured a massive 182 seats out of a total 275 seats in the House of Representatives (HoR), making it eligible to form a majority government under Article 76 (1) of the Constitution. Of the 275 members of the HoR, 165 are elected through direct voting and 110 through proportionate voting.

Soon after the oath taking ceremony of the newly elected HoR members, the central committee meeting of the RSP formed its Parliamentary party. “The Parliamentary party meeting unanimously elected Balen as its leader, formally qualifying him for the top executive post of the country,” Shanker Shrestha, secretary of the RSP’s central organisation committee, said.

Balen has been given full authority to form the new cabinet under his leadership, Shrestha said. The members of the new Cabinet will be finalised later in the evening, he added.

Earlier, the newly elected members, including Balen, of the HoR took the oath of office at the federal parliament building, beginning the process of government formation three weeks after the voting concluded. The eldest member of the House, Arjun Narasingha KC, 78, administered the oath of office and secrecy to the newly elected lawmakers at the federal parliament secretariat in Singha Durbar.