After the recent fall of the Nepali government and Sushila Karki’s appointment as the interim prime minister, the overall tone and atmosphere in the country is optimistic and congratulatory. Commentators have presented the young protesters as a political force that is here to stay, with multiple mainstream outlets dubbed the unrest as the “Gen Z Protests”. In a recent piece Karishma Vaswani, Bloomberg’s opinion columnist covering Asia, called them “Nepal’s new power brokers”. The narrative seems to be that future Nepali administrations won’t enjoy the same endemic unaccountability and corruption faced with a newly emboldened electorate; around half of Nepal’s population is younger than 40. But international coverage’s narrow political focus excludes two potent actors from discussion. Throughout the revolving door of Nepal’s three main political parties, the army and the police have held enormous influence on the country since it became a republic in 2008. They have been critical in brutally suppressing dissent against its 14 successive governments. Unless the next political administration lessens their influence, Nepal’s democratisation will remain severely constrained. Living between the cities of Kathmandu, Boudha and Lalitpur last year while I studied Tibetan grammar, I saw how ubiquitous Nepal’s police are. From patrolling busy shopping centres, to operating checkpoints at city borders, to directing traffic at main junctions, it has various municipal roles alongside its policing ones. Similarly, the army builds and maintains rural critical infrastructure like bridges, roads, and healthcare in rural regions, and is responsible for natural disaster relief. The brutality and impunity of the army and police is commensurate with their ubiquity. The latest protests were met with live ammunition; 72 civilians were murdered and at least 2,000 injured. Nepali police have long used disproportionate force to suppress protests, ranging from water cannons against civilians to batons against teacher unions. This trend dates back to the 1996-2006 civil war between Maoist insurgents and Nepal’s monarchy, characterised by widespread war crimes and enforced disappearances. In 2014, Nepal formed two commissions to investigate them; they have registered over 60,000 cases and failed to resolve even one. To date, there has not been one prosecution for torture since the crime was recognised in Nepali law in 2018. In return for repressing on behalf of the state, the army and police freely embezzle public funding. For example, the Centre of Investigative Journalism Nepal tracked Nepal’s 2020 COVID-19 Fund and found that the Ministry of Defence directed almost half of government expenditure – more than that spent by the Ministry of Health – towards Nepal’s army, which claims it used the money for procuring masks and sanitisers. The army is also becoming increasingly commercially active through endeavours like revitalising defunct textiles factories and is lobbying to overturn a law which limits its investment into business enterprises. So far, this money-for-might contract is poised to blossom.The army implementing a curfew, which has since been lifted, and negotiating with the youth is motivated by containment, not support. It has plenty of time to build its influence behind the scenes amidst political uncertainty with the parliament dissolved and former Chief Justice Karki serving as the interim Nepali PM until elections in March.Karki’s history of ardently combating corruption makes her a promising candidate for election. In 2017, she was suspended as Chief Justice after the two main parties in the ruling coalition launched impeachment proceedings against her in response to the Supreme Court overturning their appointment of Chief of Police. Her suspension was seen as politically motivated, with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights at the time describing her removal as “[giving] rise to serious concerns about the government’s commitment to transitional justice and the rule of law”. However, Karki declared she will hand over power to the next administration. This decision is a boon for the army and police; their greatest threat is now out of the running. The likeliest winner of March’s elections is the Kathmandu Mayor Balendra Shah, who enjoys significant support among Nepali youth. A rapper with a strong social media presence who has clashed with the federal government and pushed for urban reform in Kathmandu, Shah’s anti-establishment branding and party-independence chimes with the youth’s revolutionary fervour. He was swift to tweet his support for the protests and endorse Karki.Youth support does not determine skill. Shah’s mayorship has been characterised by a populist, gung-ho style, cruel and counterproductive crackdown on marginalised groups. Symbolising this, soon after being elected, he deployed police to evict squatters from informal settlements around Kathmandu; the police miscalculated the squatters’ strength and retreated with a dozen officers injured, including the police chief. He has also used police violence to remove street vendors from Kathmandu’s sidewalks, despite official statistics finding that the informal economy employs 74% of workers and accounts for 39% of Nepal’s GDP. Overthrowing Nepal’s corrupt and inept three-party cabal is a welcome move. But comprehensive democratisation and economic improvement requires severing the money-for-might contract between the army, government and the police. Karki would have been the best candidate for this, but her decision to not stand for re-election opens the door to Shah’s likely election. His judicial and legislative inexperience poorly suit him for constraining the army and police, and his history of using police violence as the mayor sets a foreboding precedent. International discussion of Nepal’s political overthrow has largely overlooked the influence of Nepal’s army and police. As long as this continues, celebration is inaccurate and premature. Norpell Wilberforce is a British-Tibetan analyst and graduate from the University of Cambridge, covering international markets and politics.