Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli reportedly resigned Tuesday after violent protests over corruption and curbs on free expression spiraled into deadly confrontations, arson, and widespread vandalism, marking Nepal the third South Asian nation in recent years to topple its leader through mass revolt.
Oli’s press representative, Prakash Silwal, confirmed the resignation even as demonstrators in Kathmandu torched the prime minister’s private residence.
Oli was at his official home at the time and remains in the capital, Silwal said. Parliament buildings, government offices, party headquarters, and properties linked to other leaders were also set ablaze, according to videos and reports from local news outlets.
The unrest left at least 19 protesters dead after clashes with security forces Monday, intensifying public outrage. Demonstrators argued that the government had forfeited all legitimacy the moment it killed its own citizens.
“Our first demand is that this government should immediately resign because they have lost all moral ground after having killed so many of our brothers and sisters yesterday,” said Sudan Gurung, a protest leader, in a widely shared video message. Hours after Oli’s departure, Gurung congratulated fellow demonstrators online, portraying the resignation as a vindication of their cause.
The trigger for the revolt was a sweeping social-media ban announced Friday, ostensibly because online platforms had failed to comply with government regulations.
But the move was widely seen as an effort to muzzle dissent. The government was forced to lift the ban late Monday, as protests surged across Kathmandu.
Even some protesters voiced unease over the intensity of the violence. On a forum on the messaging app Discord, a number of users suggested that individuals not affiliated with the demonstrations were responsible for some of the arson attacks.
By Tuesday evening, the Nepali army issued an appeal for calm and warned it would mobilize security forces if vandalism of government and private property continued.
For many in Nepal, the violence represented a breaking point after years of disillusionment. The country’s stagnant economy has driven large numbers of young people abroad in search of work, while allegations of corruption and neglect have dogged successive governments.
“In Nepal, so much of the public, particularly the young who dominate the country demographically, they simply feel that the government and the broader political class does not care about their plight,” said Michael Kugelman, a Washington-based South Asia expert.
The upheaval echoed similar convulsions across the region. In Bangladesh last year, student demonstrators forced out their government, while in 2022 mass protests drove Sri Lanka’s president to flee overseas.
In Indonesia, demonstrations in recent days have underscored the same frustrations: widening gaps between citizens’ lived realities and the sunnier picture painted by their leaders.
From a conservative perspective, Nepal’s crisis illustrates the combustible mix of elite corruption, government overreach, and economic despair.
Oli’s social-media ban, intended to tighten control, instead accelerated his downfall. His ouster is a warning of what happens when leaders dismiss accountability, suppress speech, and preside over an economy that fails its people.
Nepal’s demonstrators won a victory in forcing the prime minister’s resignation, but their deeper challenge now will be whether the next government can break with the entrenched habits of corruption and neglect that sparked the uprising in the first place.
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