Rastriya Swatantra Party election candidate Balendra Shah arrives at a polling station to vote during Nepal's parliamentary election in Kathmandu on March 5, 2026. Reporter In the wake of the Gen Z ...

Balendra Shah's party won a landslide in the election that followed Nepal's Gen Z revolution. His style is pugnacious ...

In his 35 years, Balendra Shah has been a rapper, a mayor, an engineer and an unswerving fan of rectangular sunglasses. He is now on the brink of becoming Nepal ’s youngest prime minister after his ...

The RSP's 2026 campaign is a case study in how a symbol becomes so participatory and instinctive, that citizens start campaigning on behalf of a party they never formally joined. It may look like a ...

Gen Z anger at corruption and instability propels Balen Shah and the RSP to a landslide victory in Nepal’s parliamentary election.

Nepal’s Gen-Z movement has produced a dramatic political shift in the March 5, 2026, House of Representatives election, delivering a result that very few observers and analysts had anticipated in its ...

Once dismissed as a political novice, the former Kathmandu mayor is now on track to become Nepal’s next prime minister.

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — A Nepali political party led by an ex-rapper is set for a landslide victory in the country’s first parliamentary election since Gen Z protests ousted the old leadership that ...

Last year, the people of New York elected a new mayor in democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, an ex-rapper who once sent Stereogum his music. Mamdani is not the only rapper to become a governmental ...

Once known for protest rap against corruption and inequality, Balen Shah now finds himself leading the very system he once ...

Balendra Shah, known as Balen Shah, is Nepal's rapper-turned-politician who has made a remarkable journey from music to politics, serving as Prime Minister after rising through the ranks as a socially ...

Five months on, the musician who cut his political teeth in 2022 when ​he became the mayor of the capital Kathmandu, is poised to become Nepal’s next prime minister following the country’s first ...