Nepal’s youngest prime minister took the oath of office yesterday after his party won a landslide victory in elections earlier this month.
Balendra Shah was appointed prime minister by Nepalese President Ram Chandra Paudel after his Rastriya Swatantra Party won nearly two-thirds of the seats in the Nepalese House of Representatives, the lower chamber of parliament, in the March 5 polls.
Shah, the 35-year-old political outsider widely known as Balen, is to lead a government tasked with navigating deep public frustration with Nepal’s established parties, which were widely blamed by voters for corruption and chronic political instability.
Photo: AFP
Another 15 members of the new Cabinet were also sworn in at an elaborate ceremony that included Hindu rituals, such as the shankhnaad, or blowing of conches, and religious chanting by Hindu priests and Buddhist lamas.
Army bands played tunes and officials and diplomats lined up to greet the new leader, while hundreds of his supporters cheered outside the presidential residence and the prime minister’s office in the heart of Kathmandu.
The timing of Shah’s oath taking — at 12:34pm on the day when the Himalayan nation is celebrating Ram Navami — was seen as an auspicious time by Hindu priests based on astrological calculations.
It also fits the “1-2-3-4” numerological pattern.
Shah later yesterday entered his new office at 14:15pm, which also fits a “14-15” pattern.
Hindu priests consider such numerical patterns as auspicious.
Religion and astrology play a big role in Nepal, which is more than 80 percent Hindu and where people begin new work, get married and hold religious rituals according to auspicious times.
Shah was born in Kathmandu, but his family comes from the Hindu-dominated Terai region of Nepal, near the border with India.
He is a structural engineer who rose to fame as a rap artist before becoming Kathmandu’s mayor.
Shah emerged as a prominent voice during the bloody youth-led uprising in September last year that toppled the government, a wave of unrest that left dozens dead.
Although he did not directly participate in the protests, Shah publicly expressed support for the largely Gen Z demonstrators who led the movement.
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