With the emergence of Shah, the independents have also established themselves around the trinity of Nepali politics, the Nepali Congress, the UML and the Maoist Centre. They have been a political force to reckon with, and they appear to grow stronger and stronger given the continuing lackadaisical and classical performance of these established parties
Independent candidate Balen Shah has dominated the rest of the contenders in the local election like a dazzling moon amidst the flickering stars in the night sky. Shah called the shots right from the beginning.
His competitors Srijana Singh of the coalition and Keshav Ratna Sthapit of the Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML) were streets behind Shah in the race.
Independent candidates are classified as underdog, partisan and nonpartisan.
Only Harkaraj Sampang, the elected Mayor of Dharan Municipality, an underdog independent in view of his affinity to socio-political issues, came anywhere closer to Shah.
There are also others such as Gopal Hamal from Dhangarhi or Manoj Shah from Janakpur, but they were mostly the rebels who filed their nomination as independent candidates after being denied a nomination ticket from their mother political parties. They could be called partisan independents and hence different from Balen Shah, a nonpartisan independent.
Shah is a rap singer and a structural engineer. His songs can be listened on You Tube. They are popular among the youngsters, but he is less followed among the seniors who revel in the magical voices of Narayan Gopal, Prem Dhoj Pradhan, Deep Shrestha and the likes.
Shah has reportedly designed several structures in the country. Even in the arena of Structural Engineering, he is comparatively less known as would be some prominent structural engineers, which can be understood given his comparative younger age.
However, these aspects have now receded into the background with this incredible victory occupying the front stage.
His craze among the youngsters is simply stunning.
During the counting of the votes, only the voice of his supporters could be heard resonating against the backdrop of a deafening silence of his competitors.
The request to cast the vote for him from Nepali youngsters round the globe to their parents here in Nepal is also indication of his overwhelming popularity.
He is sometimes compared with Nani Maiya Dahal or even Padma Ratna Tuladhar. Dahal rode on the crest of the dissenting votes of multi-party supporters.
She had a meteoric rise and a corresponding fall. Tuladhar had the left parties' political backing as he was recognised as an independent left-leaning intellectual.
Shah emerged all of a sudden from virtually nowhere, the kind of which was neither witnessed in the past nor is it likely in the future for a long time.
With the emergence of Shah, the independents have also established themselves around the trinity of Nepali politics, the Nepali Congress, the UML and the Maoist Centre.
They have been a political force to reckon with, and they appear to grow stronger and stronger given the continuing lackadaisical and classical performance of these established parties. The mainstream political parties can no longer take the people for a ride nor can they take their votes for granted from now on. The political parties need to adopt some innovative measures to remain in the race.
The NC occupied the first spot and the UML the second in this election, but both of these parties were exposed inside out by coming nowhere near Balen Shah. He appeared like a cherry on the top of a mouthwatering delicious cake. There are many factors for this state of affairs, but the lack of innovative thinking is undoubtedly the main one. The permutation of old issues in the manifesto appeared like serving the proverbial onion and potato stew for lunch followed by a potato and onion one for dinner. The distribution of the tickets to relatives rather than competitive persons also tarnished the image of the traditional political parties.
The rise of the independent candidates in the recent times is not only in Nepal. Recently, independent candidates known as teal independents won 10 seats in the 151-member Australian parliament. So did they surface in municipal elections last year in South Africa.
The winning independent candidates represent just 1.5 per cent of the total 753 mayoral posts in Nepal. In Indonesia, in the three years before 2018, it was as high as 6.57 per cent.
This number is likely to go higher in the future after being buoyed by the Shah and Sampang episode in Nepal as well.
Voices can be heard amply in the hallowed political corridors that nonpartisan independents like Shah will be an utter disaster when it comes to service delivery in the future as he has to confront the partisan deputy mayor and the ward chairpersons.
In the case of India, independent candidates polled only 5 per cent of the votes in the last election though there were six candidates on an average in each constituency. In a few places that they won, they failed to influence the policy thereby appearing unimportant for people's representation.
Nepali politics is not very different from that of India. It is often said that umbrellas go up in Kathmandu when raindrops hit Delhi. So, there is little expectation from nonpartisan candidate like Shah.
But that also makes his life easier. He can focus on one of the easiest of the 28 pledges he has made, like setting up a health clinic in every ward and make it a success. He can then address the second easiest problem with his tail up after the first success, and at the end take the Muhammad Ali-like heavy weight pledge, for example, the garbage problem.
He may not have partisan support, but his 400,000 likes listening to his raps are far too many than ever squabbling party members. After all Ram won a war with the support of die-hard supporters like Hanuman and the innumerable likes. If Jaime Lerner, a Brazilian architect and mayor, can transform Curitibainto a paradise on earth, Shah, a structural engineer, can also catapult Kathmandu Metropolis to dizzy heights as he carved a victory for himself in such a miraculous fashion as never before.
A version of this article appears in the print on May 31, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
