Over the past three decades, Nepal has seen three uprisings and the rotational grip of three sets of leaders—each arriving with the promise of renewal, each eventually collapsing under the weight of the same dysfunction. What should have been opportunities for transformation instead became repetitions of the same political game.

The numbers tell the story. Nepal today sustains nearly 30,000 political positions spread across federal, provincial, and local governments, while registering barely 7,000 new businesses in the same period. Instead of encouraging innovation and productivity, the system has produced armies of political cadres, often boasted to number five to seven million, while millions of ordinary citizens are compelled to work abroad. Their remittances feed the economy and sustain the lifestyles of the elites at home. It is the essence of Nepal’s extractive “wealth pump” model: cadre armies at home, labor armies abroad —Game A.

Game A’s Twin Evils

The spider web political model and the wealth pump economic model together define the DNA of Nepal’s Game A. Political elites spin webs of capture around business houses, bureaucracy, education, health, law enforcement, media, NGOs, and the judiciary. Their collusion doesn’t stop there—it extends to the “selection” of the presidency, the composition of the upper house, and the control of commissions and constitutional bodies, not to mention the top-down, authoritarian style of internal party operations.

At the same time, they draw sustenance from remittance-driven extraction, where migrant workers send billions back home, only to see wealth funneled upward to fund elite lifestyles—luxury homes, cars, conspicuous consumption, bloated bureaucracy, endless seminars and conferences, foreign junkets, and the perks of former political office holders.

Every new set of players—whether the 1990 multiparty leaders, the 2006 Maoist revolutionaries, or today’s coalition elites—has entered the system only to replicate these twin evils. They collude across party lines, divvy up captured institutions, and expand armies of cadres while relying on labor armies abroad. Even the Maoists, once insurgents against elite capture, were absorbed into the same web once in power.

The result is a cycle of fragility. A Game A system appears strong but is inherently brittle. Its power rests not on resilient institutions or adaptive rules, but on webs of patronage and rent-seeking. That is why, almost every ten years, the system cracks:

• 1990 multiparty democracy fell to factionalism, corruption and political games.
• 2006 Maoist revolution collapsed into the same extractive models.
• 2020s Gen-Z revolt now rises against elite overproduction and disillusionment.

The lesson is stark: Game A is designed to collapse.

But the danger now is deeper—Nepal may not be able to recover from the next collapse.

Respectful Caution on the Rush for Solutions

In the wake of the Gen-Z uprising, we see a familiar surge of activity. Zoom seminars, discussion groups, and policy forums are multiplying, bringing together PhDs, bureaucrats, media personalities, and civic leaders who are genuinely concerned about Nepal’s future. Their energy is admirable.

Yet history gives us reason for caution. After every political shock, waves of proposals have surfaced—only to be absorbed back into the same Game A operating system, built around the twin evils of collusive politics and extractive economics. However sincere the effort, the result too often has been to re-stabilize a brittle system rather than to transform it.

Beyond Blame and Conspiracies

In the aftermath of September 8 and 9, much of the public conversation has centered on the destruction of buildings and private properties, alongside the killing of 19 students the day before. The current figure is more than 70. Supporters of the uprising speak of infiltration, while others emphasize the damage and disruption. Both perspectives carry weight: those responsible for violence must face justice, and the tragic loss of young lives must not be forgotten.

Still, it would be a mistake if the debate stopped here. Overemphasis on property damage, or attempts to pin the uprising solely on Gen-Z supporters, risks narrowing the issue into another familiar cycle of accusation and counter-accusation. Likewise, narratives of shadowy foreign hands behind the movement may distract from the deeper challenge. Nepal has seen this diversion before—after each revolution, conspiracy replaced reflection, and the structural flaws of the system remained untouched.

The true test is not simply to punish or explain the events of September 8 and 9 but to confront why Nepal’s political system is so brittle that such upheavals recur every decade. Unless we confront the twin evils of collusive politics and extractive economics, the country will remain trapped in Game A’s cycle of fragility.

A New Operating System for Nepal (Game B Principles)

If the twin evils of Game A are the problem, then the answer lies in designing an operating system built on resilience, accountability, and distributed participation. A Game B Nepal might include:

• Distributed Power
  • Break the chain of capture by ensuring real autonomy for local governments, municipalities, and provinces with transparent fiscal authority. Decision-making flows both upward and downward, not just from the center.
• Accountable Institutions
  • Independent oversight bodies—judiciary, anti-corruption, election commission—shielded from party capture, with built-in transparency and public reporting protocols.
• Equitable Participation
  • Party structures mandated to run on internal democracy (primaries, financial transparency, term limits), so leadership reflects citizens rather than entrenched elites. The Election Commission should be constitutionally bound to enforce this, as is done explicitly in countries like Germany, Spain, and South Africa.
• Resilient Structures
  • Institutions designed with feedback loops—citizen assemblies, review boards, and periodic audits—so the system adapts and corrects itself before reaching collapse.

  In short, Game A thrives on concentration and collapse, while Game B is about distribution and resilience.

A Note of Caution

Some in the new forces now call for bold constitutional redesign, such as a directly elected prime minister or president. While such proposals resonate with frustrations over paralysis, history counsels caution. Israel briefly experimented with direct prime ministerial elections (1996–2001), but the result was instability and policy deadlock, leading to its abandonment. No country today uses this system.

Tunisia’s recent turn is an even starker warning. In 2022, President Kais Saied rewrote the constitution to concentrate executive power, sidelined parliament, weakened the judiciary, and restructured the election commission under presidential control. Decree-Law 54 criminalized dissent under the guise of combating “false news.” By 2024, opposition parties had been neutralized, elections hollowed out, and power centralized. What began as reform for accountability quickly devolved into autocracy.

The lesson for Nepal is clear: without checks and balances, even the noblest reforms can collapse into authoritarian drift.

Escaping the Twin Evils: From Game A to Game B

This is where Game B, as articulated by complexity scientist Jim Rutt, offers a clarifying lens. Game A is the game of fragile power: extractive, collusive, and doomed to repeat collapse. Game B is the game of resilience: distributed, transparent, adaptive, and built to endure stress without breaking.

Seen in this light, the Gen-Z uprising is not just another cry for leadership change. It is an instinctive revolt against the very operating system of Game A. Their demand is not simply for new faces but for a new game—one that escapes the spider web of political capture and the wealth pump of economic exploitation, and instead builds institutions that are participatory, transparent, and resilient.

Protocols of Game B

If Nepal is to break free from the cycle of Game A, it needs not just new leaders but new protocols—rules and practices that reshape how power operates. A Game B Nepal could start with:

1. Independent Upper House
   • Elect an upper house directly, separate from lower-house victories. This creates an institutional check against one-party monopolies.
2. Checks on the Presidency
   • If Nepal chooses direct presidential elections, the office must be bound by strong checks and balances—clear limits on authority, judicial oversight, and accountability to parliament and citizens.
3. Internal Party Democracy
   • Mandate primaries, term limits, and transparency in party structures so no party becomes a private cartel. Germany, Spain, and South Africa embed such clauses in their constitutions.
4. Resilient Local Governance
   • Strengthen municipalities and provinces with real fiscal autonomy and citizen oversight boards, so power and accountability flow downward, not just upward.These protocols shift the focus from personalities to structures. They aim to make politics resilient rather than brittle, adaptive rather than corruptible, and accountable to citizens rather than captive to elites.

These protocols shift the focus from personalities to structures. They aim to make politics resilient rather than brittle, adaptive rather than corruptible, and accountable to citizens rather than captive to elites.

Conclusion: Breaking the Fragile Game

Nepal’s tragedy is not just bad leaders; it is the **system itself—Game A—** that is brittle, extractive, and prone to collapse. Parties expand patronage, forming vast cadre armies at home, while economic stagnation forces millions into labor armies abroad, sustaining elites through remittances rather than resilience. Such systems inevitably crack under their own contradictions.

If Nepal is to avoid yet another cycle of collapse, the task for Gen-Z is not to seize the old game but to design a new one. That means moving beyond spider-web politics and wealth-pump economics to a system that is adaptive, participatory, and resilient.

A Game B society does not promise utopia, but it does promise something Nepal has never truly had: a political architecture that does not collapse every ten years.