Gen Z Takes Action in Nepal and Madagascar
By Vivienne Mockenhaupt ‘27
Throughout September, a wave of youthled protest movements swept across first Nepal and then Madagascar, leading to widespread political upheaval in both nations.
Gen-Z outrage in Nepal focused primarily on the nation’s vast wealth gaps and government corruption, and nationwide protests took off following an early September ban on a range of social media platforms. The ban, which the Nepali government lifted following the negative public response, only fueled widespread dissatisfaction with the extreme affluence of a small fraction of the population. In Nepal, economic inequality has been a long-standing issue: the Nepal Economic Forum stated in January 2024 that the richest 10% of the population possessed twenty-six times as much wealth as the poorest 40%. Protests erupted into reactionary police violence, with a death toll of seventy-two as of September 14, according to Reuters. Ultimately, Nepali Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli resigned on September 9 following mounting political pressure, leaving the nation leaderless under a shaky peace established by the mostly digital Gen Z coalition.
Elections for a new prime minister took place via popular chat room platform Discord, where over 145,000 Nepali citizens joined a server to debate next steps for the nation. Sid Ghimire, who lives in the capital city of Kathmandu, spoke to the New York Times in an article published on September 11, stating that “The Parliament of Nepal right now is Discord.” On September 12, according to the Kathmandu Post, moderators of the server conducted elections via an open poll, where Sushila Karki, former chief justice of the Nepali Supreme Court, received 3,833 votes, approximately 50% of the 7,713 total votes cast. Karki will serve in an interim role as prime minister, becoming the first woman to hold that position in Nepal’s history.
In Madagascar, young people gathered to protest unreliable access to electricity and water, as well as government corruption similar to the issues reported in Nepal. Initially, per the BBC, two city politicians in Antananarivo, the capital city, had planned peaceful demonstrations; both politicians were arrested on September 19, exacerbating youth discontentment and sparking what became violent protests organized via social media by the political action collective Gen Z Mada. Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, announced the estimated death toll to be over twenty-two people as of September 29, but the government of Madagascar has since disputed this figure. As with police response in Nepal, protests began peacefully, but law enforcement forces retaliated using tear gas and other forms of restraint.
On September 29, President Andry Rajoelina announced the dissolution of the Malagasy government, stating on a national television broadcast that he “felt the suffering” of the nation’s people and ousting the incumbent prime minister, Christian Ntsay. According to his statement, he hopes to instate a new governing body in the coming days, while Ntsay and the rest of the cabinet will remain on an interim basis until the government has been stabilized once more.
These Gen-Z movements in Nepal and Madagascar represent only two examples of a broader trend. Youth-led anti-corruption protests, specifically citing concerns of government perpetuation of economic inequality and withholding of resources, have become increasingly common worldwide, and this phenomenon appears to be no accident. According to the New York Times, Nepali protesters adopted the use of a skull and crossbones flag initially popularized on social media platforms in Indonesia, and the movement in Madagascar has followed suit, depicting this series of events as contributions to one unified cause. The pattern continues: per the Associated Press, protests against government corruption sparked in Morocco on September 27, and Moroccan officials stated that the majority of participants were minors.
Since 2024, anti-corruption protests have roiled Serbia, a perceived European ally of Russia. Taking on a similar ideological bent, Gen-Z demonstrators took to the streets in the Philippines last month, albeit with less dramatic immediate consequences than their counterparts in Nepal and Madagascar. In Latin America, this summer saw what United Press International called “Gen Z Protests” in both Peru and Paraguay.
While the Nepali government is in a transitional period, Karki has set a new election to be held on March 5, 2026, as the BBC reported. Rajoelina, however, appears reluctant to step down despite widespread calls for his resignation; what comes next for Madagascar remains unclear.