Cuba and What’s Happened in Nepal after the GenZ Uprising?
No regime, not even the most unpopular, collapses solely because of discontent.
By Yunior García Aguilera (14ymedio)
HAVANA TIMES – “Communism has fallen in Nepal!” some Cubans continue to repeat, as if every tremor anywhere in the world were the prelude to our own redemption. But what has happened in that landlocked country is not a closed chapter, and we still don’t know whether the hole opened by the protests will deepen into larger cracks or if, like so many others, it will be covered up with makeup. For now—I hate to bring bad news—communism remains in power.
In Nepal, the sirens of protest no longer sound, but neither does the music of victory. The resignation of K. P. Sharma Oli, the strongman of the Communist Party (Unified Marxist–Leninist), marked a turning point, but not the end of an era. Just days after his departure, Nepali politics remains in limbo, trying to readjust without breaking apart.
This is where imported euphoria should pause. Nepal has not become a full liberal democracy, nor has it shed the heavy inheritance of its recent political history. Parliament has appointed an interim government made up of a fragile coalition, dominated by figures who did not participate in the uprisings and who, in more than one case, are part of the same political machinery now pretending to be renewed.
The new interim prime minister, Sushila Karki, came to office as a symbol of change and, at the same time, as an instrument of containment. She is the first woman to lead Nepal’s executive branch, but her mandate is limited to organizing elections scheduled for March 2026 and maintaining a precarious calm. Behind her figure remain the old politicians, bureaucratic apparatuses, and clientelist networks that have shaped national politics for decades.
The international community has also lost interest. The mainstream media, distracted by other storms, stopped covering Nepal as soon as the fires went out. There are no daily headlines or special correspondents. And when a country disappears from the front pages, local elites breathe a sigh of relief.
Generation Z, which lit the spark, has no visible leader. Its strength lies in its decentralization—in its ability to organize through digital platforms and turn collective outrage into street mobilization. The student group Hami Nepali has become an emblem of this new kind of politics: horizontal and distrustful of traditional structures.
Nor are there public lists of imprisoned opponents, as in other authoritarian regimes. But there is indeed a climate of selective repression and surveillance that reminds everyone the ruling power hasn’t given up its instinct for control. Some activists have reported judicial harassment, temporary detentions, and intensified digital monitoring. Censorship hasn’t vanished completely; it has merely eased enough to calm the crowds.
In Cuba, many of us cheered the collapse of Nepal’s prime minister as if it were the final scene in a film about serial dictatorships. But Nepal is no perfect metaphor. It is a country trapped between India and China, where communist, Maoist, and socialist forces intertwined for decades with nationalism, clientelism, and ethnic struggles. Its “communism” was not a carbon copy of other models, though it shared common obsessions—control of information, fear of dissent, and the temptation to remain in power forever.
And here comes the uncomfortable part: no regime, not even the most unpopular, collapses solely because of discontent. The street is powerful, yes, but without clear political structures and leadership capable of transforming fury into institutions, change tends to be hijacked by the same old actors. And Nepal runs that risk. Rumors are already circulating about “governability pacts” among traditional parties and agreements seeking “stability” in exchange for keeping intact the very logics that caused the crisis.
For Cubans, observing this process with political maturity would be far more useful than celebrating other people’s victories as if they were our own. Because the real challenge is not toppling symbols but preventing others—equally or more deceitful—from taking the vacant throne. Nepal has not been liberated; it has merely exploded. And from the ruins of an explosion, a luminous republic does not always emerge. Those of us who dream of building a true democratic change in Cuba should not look away from what continues to unfold in Nepal—and take note.
First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.