A few days after the resignation of Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli, Nepal has appointed a temporary successor. The 73-year-old Sushila Karki is the new interim prime minister of the Asian country, where large-scale protests have taken place in recent days due to a now reversed ban on social media. Those protests have so far 51 Nepalese killed, mainly due to police violence.
In Nepal, according to many A-political Karki, the Reuters news agency writes. In her short time as a supreme judge, between 2016 and 2017, she opposed corruption in the country. Some of her political opponents tried to drop her off in 2017 in vain due to alleged bias, but they were then accused of an attack on the judiciary.
The protests in Nepal started last Tuesday, after the announcement of the social media ban. Moreover, for the protesters, mainly young people, the ongoing corruption in Nepal was a reason to protest. The fact that the Nepalese government reversed the ban on the 23 online platforms – including YouTube and X – did not lead to an end of the demonstrations.
Escalating protests
On the contrary: harsh action of the riot police, which used tear gas and water cannons and shot sharply, already caused escalation of the protests. On Wednesday, demonstrators also set fire to the parliament building, the presidential palace and the official residence of the former Prime Minister Oli, who has since fled.
The violence made the resignation of OLI, who had the ban introduced on social media to inevit the “national unity” and “national interests,” inevitable. For a few days, Nepal was then in a constitutional no -man’s land, but the sworn by Karki puts an end to that.
Karki said to CNN last week: “Representatives of Gen Z have asked me to prepare the way to new elections. These are young men and women, I have accepted their request.”