In a year marked by seismic shifts in global politics, Nepal has found itself at the epicenter of a new kind of political awakening—one driven by the restless energy and frustration of Generation Z. The Supreme Court of Nepal, on December 26, 2025, dismissed a high-profile writ petition that challenged the impartiality of an investigation commission probing the violent events that rocked Kathmandu in early September. This legal decision comes as the country, and indeed much of the world, grapples with the aftershocks of youth-led uprisings that have toppled governments and unsettled long-standing power structures.
The petition, filed by advocate Bipin Dhakal, questioned the neutrality of commission chair Gauri Bahadur Karki, citing his past public remarks as evidence of potential bias. The commission, which also includes former AIG Gyanraj Sharma and Bishweshwar Prasad Bhandari, was tasked with investigating the tumultuous incidents of September 8 and 9, 2025—a period that saw Kathmandu’s streets filled with thousands of protesting young people, government buildings set ablaze, and even the Hilton Hotel engulfed in flames. According to Republica, the full bench of Justices Manoj Kumar Sharma, Nahakul Subedi, and Shrikant Poudel ultimately decided to dismiss Dhakal’s petition, though they did issue some directive observations for the commission to consider moving forward.
This legal wrangling is just one chapter in a much larger story of generational unrest. As detailed in a recent HOTSPOT report by Samannay Biswas, 2025 saw a remarkable surge in youth-led movements worldwide, with Generation Z at the forefront. These movements didn’t just make noise—they made history. In Nepal, the protests that erupted in September were fueled by a potent mix of anger over job scarcity, nepotism, and a controversial social media ban. The resulting clashes left parts of Kathmandu smoldering and forced Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli to resign on September 8. The government’s collapse paved the way for an interim administration led by former Supreme Court justice Sushila Karki, now tasked with steering the nation towards elections scheduled for March 2026.
Bloomberg Economics, leveraging a machine learning model trained on 22 million data points, has identified Nepal as one of several countries at heightened risk for civil unrest in 2026. The model points to a volatile blend of youth mobilization, high social media usage, economic pressures, and persistent inequality as key ingredients for continued instability. Nepal’s situation is far from unique; the Carnegie Protest Tracker recorded 53 large-scale demonstrations—each with over 10,000 participants—across 33 economies in 2025, the highest tally since the tracker’s inception in 2017.
The roots of this Gen-Z revolt run deep and cross national boundaries. Soaring rents, rampant inflation, and the specter of underemployment in an AI-disrupted job market have eroded the purchasing power and optimism of young people. Widening income gaps and entrenched corruption, often favoring a narrow elite, only add fuel to the fire. As Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu put it, liberal democracies are facing a “crisis” as they struggle to respond to these mounting pressures.
In Nepal, the September protests were anything but spontaneous. Youth groups like the Nepal Gen-Z Front organized online, drawing inspiration from pop culture—pirate flags from the manga One Piece and video game icons like Master Chief from Halo became unlikely symbols of resistance. One 23-year-old student, Amrita Ban, described the mood: “Working hard is no longer enough to live decently.” Her words echo the sentiments of young people from Antananarivo to Mexico City, where similar protests have erupted over unaffordable housing, corruption, and a lack of opportunity.
The impact of these movements has been dramatic. In Madagascar, weeks of protests over chronic poverty, water shortages, and power outages led to the overthrow of President Andry Rajoelina in October. Peru saw President Dina Boluarte ousted amid rising crime and youth-led demonstrations, while in Bulgaria, Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov resigned after budget protests exposed deep-seated resentment among the country’s youth. Even in the United States, the surprise election of 35-year-old Zohran Mamdani as New York City’s mayor underscored the growing political influence of younger generations, particularly on issues of affordability and economic justice.
Bloomberg Economics’ unrest risk index, using January 2025 as a baseline, highlights Nepal, Madagascar, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic, Angola, Guatemala, the Republic of Congo, and Malaysia as countries with the sharpest increases in civil unrest risk heading into 2026. Developed nations like the United States, Indonesia, and Israel are also flagged for rising risk, driven by political polarization and cost-of-living crises. A complementary “youth misery gauge,” which combines youth unemployment with a five-year average of inflation, paints a grim picture for countries like Zimbabwe, Argentina, Turkey, Suriname, Iran, and Angola, where hardship is particularly acute.
The International Labour Organization reports that one in four young people globally are neither employed nor in education or training, pushing many into low-wage jobs just as inflation bites hardest. In the Philippines, Gen-Z activists have led anti-corruption protests against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., while in Indonesia, ride-hailing workers rioted in August over elite capture and staggering youth unemployment rates.
As the world looks ahead to 2026, the lessons from Nepal and other hotspots are clear. Youth-led movements are not a passing fad; they are a fundamental challenge to established political and economic orders. The Nepal Gen-Z Front and similar groups are now channeling their energy into voter registration drives and political organizing, determined to shape the outcome of upcoming elections. In Serbia, student activists successfully forced the abandonment of a high-profile real estate project, while in Morocco, September protests over healthcare and education signaled a growing fear that the “Moroccan dream” is slipping away for many young people.
Governments that ignore or suppress these movements do so at their peril. As Acemoglu warns, without “reasonable, hopeful, and fair solutions,” liberal democracies risk losing the support of a generation that is more connected, more informed, and more impatient for change than any before it. The events of 2025 have shown that the old playbook—repression, denial, or token reforms—no longer works. Instead, the world’s leaders face a stark choice: adapt to the demands of their youngest citizens or risk being swept aside by the tide of history.
Nepal’s Supreme Court decision may have closed one legal chapter, but for the country’s restless youth and their counterparts around the globe, the real story is just beginning.
