A 35-year-old former rapper is on track to become Nepal’s next prime minister. Early counting in the elections on Friday (7 March) showed Balendra Shah’s Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) was leading in around 100 seats, far ahead of rivals.
The election is the first in the South Asian country since a youth-led uprising over a social media ban and government corruption in September 2025 killed 77 people and forced then Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli to reign.
The Nepali Congress, currently in second place, has already conceded defeat. Final results are expected within days.
Shah, who was previously mayor of Nepal's capital Kathmandu, joined the RSP last year as its candidate for prime minister.
The RSP has promised to create 1.2 million jobs, increase Nepal’s per capita income from $1,447 to $3,000 and provide safety nets such as healthcare insurance for the entire population within five years.
Unemployment and low wages have pushed millions of Nepalis to search for work overseas in countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia. Around 1.67 million Nepali citizens emigrated in 2024.
As mayor of Kathmandu, Shah focused on improving urban infrastructure, such as waste management, as well as healthcare.
But he also faced criticism, including from Human Rights Watch, for allegedly using police to seize the properties of street vendors and landless people.
China has lodged a formal diplomatic protest with the UK after British border officials allegedly subjected Chinese travellers to lengthy questioni...
Member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) prevented 273 terrorist attacks and more than 3,000 crimes linked to terrorism, separa...
More than 150 people have been killed in a drone strike on a crowded market in the disputed Abyei region, South Sudanese officials said, marking on...
U.S. President Donald Trump has criticised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for continuing to target Russia's energy infrastructure, while Russian strikes on Kyiv overnight killed at least one person and damaged a metro station.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has arrived in Norway for talks about the Russia-Ukraine war. He is expected to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump's Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, who arrived in Oslo earlier. Witkoff will also meet European officials.
French President Emmanuel Macron has condemned the violence, looting and vandalism that erupted during cost-of-living protests across France. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu held crisis talks on Monday, calling for partial curfews and raising the possibility of a state of emergency.
An oil tanker caught fire after striking a naval mine in the southern part of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy said late Sunday.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said regional issues should be resolved through diplomacy and blamed the United States for insecurity and tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, speaking at a joint news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday.
China has lodged a formal diplomatic protest with the UK after British border officials allegedly subjected Chinese travellers to lengthy questioning and seized personal electronic devices, including phones, laptops and smartwatches.
More than 150 people have been killed in a drone strike on a crowded market in the disputed Abyei region, South Sudanese officials said, marking one of the deadliest attacks linked to Sudan's civil war since it began in April 2023.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has arrived in Norway for talks about the Russia-Ukraine war. He is expected to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump's Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, who arrived in Oslo earlier. Witkoff will also meet European officials.
Beijing says it deployed naval forces to monitor a U.S. warship near Sabina Shoal, while Taiwan reports a separate confrontation with a Chinese coast guard vessel near the Pratas Islands.
Tensions are mounting across Asia, with North Korea warning of war, China clashing with the U.S. and the Philippines, and protests gathering pace in Indonesia and India. Military threats, diplomatic disputes and political unrest are fuelling uncertainty across the region.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment