Former Judge Sushila Karki Named Nepal’s Leader After Gen Z Protests

Sushila Karki, a former chief justice, was the choice of the student protesters whose mass rallies led to violent clashes and toppled the government.

Sushila Karki, a former chief justice and staunch anti-corruption campaigner, was named on Friday as the caretaker prime minister of Nepal, the Himalayan nation whose government collapsed in flames this week.

Ms. Karki, who is Nepal’s first female leader, was the choice of the student protesters whose mass rallies on Monday galvanized an extraordinary sequence of events. Demonstrations against government graft and a ban on social media platforms turned deadly when security forces opened fire on the students, who call themselves Gen Z.

Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli resigned to take responsibility for the deaths, and the ban was rescinded. But mobs rampaged across the nation on Tuesday, burning and looting thousands of buildings. Nearly every major state institution was damaged. More than 50 people died in the mayhem, according to the Nepali police on Friday.

Sunil Bahadur Thapa, a presidential adviser who announced Ms. Karki’s appointment before she officially took her oath, said that Parliament had also been dissolved. The Parliament building, like so many others in Kathmandu, the Nepali capital, now lies in ruins.

Ms. Karki will form a cabinet in the coming days and will eventually call for elections, Mr. Thapa said, “most likely after six, seven, eight months.”

The swearing-in ceremony for Ms. Karki took place at the president’s office, which was also damaged in the arson attacks. A heavy military presence was nearby, with multiple barricades set up, soldiers and armored vehicles at the ready.

For days, Nepal effectively has been under the control of the army, which set nationwide curfews and sent thousands of soldiers onto the streets. Gen. Ashok Raj Sigdel, the army chief, met repeatedly with both the student protesters and members of the fallen government.

Though Mr. Oli resigned as prime minister on Tuesday, President Ramchandra Paudel did not. He had not been seen in public since Monday, but on Friday fulfilled his constitutional duty to confirm the new leader of the government. Mr. Thapa, the presidential adviser, said that Mr. Poudel had approved Ms. Karki’s appointment based on the recommendation of the country’s major political parties.

The oath-taking was attended by grandees of Nepali politics, as well as the American, Chinese and Indian ambassadors. The three countries have jockeyed for influence in this strategic, mountainous territory. Also present were representatives of the student protests and Ms. Karki’s husband, himself a former activist who in 1973 was tied to the hijacking of a cash-filled airplane to fund a revolt against the monarchy.

As speculation about her potential role mounted, Ms. Karki told an Indian news channel that she would accept the position because “those young boys and girls, they asked me, they requested me.”

Ms. Karki, 73, has a reputation for standing up to corrupt elements in a graft-ridden society. Less than a year into her tenure as chief justice, two of Nepal’s ruling parties pushed to impeach her after the court revoked the government’s appointment of a new Inspector General of police. Their effort to remove her, which the U.N. called “politically motivated,” was dropped after public pressure.

As Nepal’s first female chief justice, Ms. Karki also campaigned for women’s rights and has been an inspiration for a growing cohort of young female lawyers and judges.

Many Nepalis, especially those active in the Gen Z movement, are angry about corruption, complaining that a small number of elite Nepalis are able to accumulate vast estates for their children.

With limited career prospects at home, educated young Nepalis have fled the country, a brain drain that has further damaged the nation’s economy. Every day, a couple of thousand Nepali laborers depart their homeland for jobs overseas.

In a sign of the continuing chaos in Nepal, where many official documents and records have gone up in smoke, Ms. Karki’s online biography was unavailable. In fact, the entire Supreme Court’s website was not operational.

Ms. Karki’s appointment is unlikely to end political tensions. As protests escalated this week, government ministers were forcibly sequestered in army barracks, one of the ministers said. Raghuji Panta, the education minister, said on Friday evening, just after Ms. Karki’s swearing in, that he had been deprived of his phone since Tuesday.

“This is a regression,” Mr. Panta said, explaining that he was not happy with the events that led to Ms. Karki’s appointment.

Mr. Panta’s home was burned in the arson attacks, and he said everything there had been destroyed.

Balaram K.C., a former Supreme Court justice, said that Ms. Karki boldly opposed corruption during her judicial tenure. But he said he could not comment on her suitability as Nepal’s interim leader.

“Being a justice and being a prime minister are two different things,” he said.

Alex Travelli contributed reporting.

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