Gone are the days

The only credible way to establish the support for monarchy is through the ballot box.

The deposed monarchy’s popularity in Nepal is hard to gauge. Ex-king Gyanendra Shah seems to garner some public attention wherever he goes. Over the past month or so, there have also been pro-monarchy rallies all over the country, including the most recent one in Kathmandu on Sunday. The size of these crowds is again a matter of speculation. Yet it would be an exaggeration to say that most Nepalis back the restoration of the institution, as the monarchists claim. In a democracy, the best measure of the popularity of a political party or a political ideology is the support it gets at the ballot box. In the most recent general elections in 2022, the pro-monarchy Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) got under 6 percent of popular votes, winning just 14 of the 275 seats in the federal lower house. Although this represented a significant bump from the 2017 general elections (just over two percent of votes and a single seat), the 2022 results were by no means a mandate for the return of monarchy. Since the 2022 elections, there have been indications of marginal increase in its support, mostly as a result of the incompetence of the big parties. Even so, there are no signs the country is ripe for a change in its political system.