Meet Sushila Karki, BHU alumna set to be Nepal’s next Prime Minister
The former chief justice was chosen to lead interim government after a consensus was reached between major political parties and Gen Z leaders
The suspense is over, and it is now confirmed that Nepal’s first female chief justice, Sushila Karki, will take over the prime minister’s post left vacant by KP Sharma Oli in the wake of violent Gen Z protests against his government.
Karki’s name was decided following an agreement among major political parties and representatives of the Gen Z protest movement.
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She is set to be sworn in to the top post at 9 pm on Friday (September 12) at Shital Niwas, the Presidential Palace in Nepal.
Karki will also be the first woman to serve as the prime minister of Nepal.
Here’s a glance at her background:
Who is Karki?
Born in an agricultural family in Nepal’s Biratnagar in 1952, Karki was the eldest of seven children. Her family is said to have had close ties with that of BP Koirala, who served as Nepal’s prime minister from 1959 to 1960.
Karki did her Bachelor’s degree from Mahendra Morang College in Tribhuvan University in 1972 and later got a Master’s degree in political science from Banaras Hindu University in India in 1975. She did her Bachelor of Law from Tribhuvan University in 1978.
Karki had actively participated in Nepal’s 1990 People’s Movement against the panchayat regime. She was imprisoned in the Biratnagar Jail at that time. She has written her experiences of the time in her novel Kara.
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Legal career
She built an illustrious career as an advocate, and climbed up the legal ladder to be appointed as an ad-hoc chief justice following the retirement of Kalyan Shrestha in April 2016. She was formally appointed as the 25th Chief Justice of Nepal on July 11, 2016, and served till her retirement on June 7, 2017.
Karki is said to have adopted a policy of zero tolerance against corruption during her tenure. During her tenure, the then information and communication minister Jaiprakash Prasad Gupta was convicted in a corruption case.
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Impeachment motion
However, her stint wasn’t without its fair share of controversies. In 2017, she was briefly suspended as chief justice after an impeachment motion was filed against her by lawmakers of the Maoist Centre and Nepali Congress parties, accusing her of bias in a verdict that led to the removal of the country’s powerful anti-corruption chief on eligibility grounds