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Mountain Tremors
The aftershocks of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli’s decision to dissolve the lower house of Nepal’s parliament and call for early elections are still being felt.
For months, a series of political tremors have shaken the foundation of Nepal’s nascent federal democratic state. In December 2020, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, urged Nepalese President Bidya Devi Bhandari to unilaterally dissolve the lower house of parliament and announce fresh elections.
The move is a direct consequence of a factional disagreement within the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) over the withdrawal of an ordinance to change the provisions of the Constitutional Council Act.
Oli’s unwillingness to resist authoritarian impulses earned the ire of democratic forces and culminated in protests. The NCP, which is a coalition of Maoist and Marxist-Leninist groups, led by the prime minister, found itself in the grip of a leadership crisis.
Over the last few months, factional infighting has intensified and chaos has crept into Nepal’s political arena. Friction within the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) -- the Oli-led United Marxist-Leninists and Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda’s Maoist Centre -- has been a prevalent feature of national politics since the 2018 elections. After Oli’s constitutional coup, these factional tensions have morphed into an intense struggle for the seat of power.
Oli has vehemently criticized the Prachanda-led faction’s attempt to oust him and maintained that he will not resign from public office. Driven by ill-disguised optimism, Oli believes that he will obtain a two-thirds majority in the subsequent elections if he is ousted. Meanwhile, Prachanda has made consistent efforts to woo opposition parties such as the Nepali Congress and the Janata Samajbadi Party to rid the nation of an autocratic premier.
The Supreme Court’s decision on February 23, 2021 to restore the lower house provided a much-needed impetus to undermine Oli’s authority. Even so, the sense of jubilation appeared short-lived as the apex court dissolved the Nepal Communist Party a few weeks later, and reinstated the CPN-UML and the Maoist Centre as separate political entities. Analysts believe that Oli has influenced the court’s verdict through excessive executive interference in the affairs of the judiciary.
Be that as it may, the decision to delegitimize the Nepal Communist Party has placed both factions on a level-playing field in terms of regaining their electoral strength for the next polls. Nevertheless, the factions of the now-defunct NCP will be unable to clinch a parliamentary majority on their own and will require the support of other parties. It is difficult to predict if both factions will be able to achieve the desired support. If the pre-existing dynamics among political parties are to serve as a gauge, Oli and Prachanda may have to engage in considerable negotiations to gain the allegiances of various parties.
There is a strong likelihood that both factions will struggle to garner support from the Nepali Congress (NC). Although the NC is ranked among the country’s leading political parties, it has maintained an ambivalent posture on key political issues. In the past, the NC has adopted a seemingly equivocal approach to parliamentary bills to thwart civil liberties. At this juncture, the NC is mired in internal rifts and will need to categorically identify where their loyalties lie.
Nepali Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba issued a non-committal statement which reveals that the party is still weighing its options in light of the political situation. Interestingly, both factions of the erstwhile NCP have offered the post of the PM to Deuba. In the absence of a clear stance on whether the NC will support Prachanda or Oli, these offers are meaningless and only indicate the desperation of the respective factions to gain the coveted majority.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to nullify the Maoist Centre’s merger with the UML, the Madhav Nepal group of the erstwhile NCP has been left with no option but to return to the UML. This is a cause for concern as Madhav Nepal is a strong proponent of the Prachanda-led faction and will now have to accept Oli’s leadership. Under the circumstances, Madhav Nepal will be unable to follow his own political agenda without potentially ousting Oli or splitting the UML. Faced with such knotty problems wherein party alignments don’t always reflect personal allegiances, the ruling elite may have to devise a concrete strategy to resolve conflicts.
In mid-March, the Nepalese president took a step in the right direction by convening an all-party meeting to deliberate over the political turmoil that has laid siege of the country. The meeting has been billed as a tactic of last resort to ensure that the government doesn’t crumble so easily. However, the tensions that have emerged cannot be ironed out in one fell swoop, and will require time and patience to be resolved. If Nepal is to survive as a democratic polity, its leaders must be encouraged to recognize that they owe a duty to the people that exceeds their own vested interests.
![]() The writer is a journalist and author. He analyses international issues and can be reached at tahakehar2@gmail.com |
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