KATMANDU, Nepal: Nepal’s youngest prime minister took the oath of office Friday after his party won a landslide victory in elections earlier this month and following a youth-led uprising that toppled the government in September.
Balendra Shah was appointed the prime minister by President Ram Chandra Paudel Friday after his Rastriya Swatantra Party won nearly two-thirds of the seats in the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of parliament, in the March 5 polls.
Shah, the 35-year-old political outsider widely known as Balen, will lead a government tasked with navigating deep public frustration with Nepal’s established parties, who were widely blamed by voters for corruption and chronic political instability.
Religion and astrology play a big role in Nepal, which is more than 80 percent Hindu and where people begin new work, get married and hold religious rituals according to auspicious times.
Shah was born in the capital Katmandu but his family comes from the Hindu-dominated Terai region of Nepal, near the border with India.
