Old wine in old bottle in Nepal politics

K P Oli's inability to unite his party continues to cause aftershocks in Nepal's larger politics a month after his government was overthrown. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has repeated transgressions of his predecessor to allow political parties to split through ordinance -- exactly the sin his five-party alliance accused Oli of committing to oust him.

 Deuba called a halt to the budget debate during the Parliament session in order to persuade President Bidya Devi Bhandari to sign an ordinance allowing his ally Madhav Kumar Nepal to form a new party. The ordinance, which clearly aims to enable Madhav Nepal's UML (Socialist) party to separate from Oli's mainstream UML so that it can join the government, allows political parties to split even if only 20% of the Central Committee and the parliamentary party support it. But Deuba’s move has been condemned across the political spectrum, including from within his own Nepali Congress (NC) where there was scathing rebuke from senior members. 

 ‘It doesn’t matter who does it, it is wrong to pass an ordinance like this in a democracy.  It was wrong then, and it is wrong now,’ the NC’s Gagan Thapa posted on Twitter.  ‘Anyone who stood against Oli’s moves back then has no right to support it at this time.’  The NC’s Shekhar Koirala described his own boss’ decision to end the Parliament session to directly influence the division of another political party as being ‘against the culture of the Nepal Congress’.

 — Gagan Thapa (@thapagk) August 18, 2021

 Experts concur that Nepal's political and parliamentary processes will be significantly impacted by ordinances enacted to serve short-term partisan interests. Political analyst Puranjan Acharya asks, "What if in future other ordinances bring down the required votes to 10%, or even 5%?" "The prime minister passed this ordinance allowing parties to split with just 20% support," Oli seems to have gotten wind of Deuba’s move, and on Tuesday expelled 14 party members including Madhav Nepal before that could happen.  That sealed the UML's fate. Nepal stated on Tuesday at a virtual meeting of the public sector, "We tried our best until the last moment to keep the party united, but K P Oli closed the door." However, Deuba’s supporters in the party saw it as a shrewd move to split the powerful UML so that his party would be better placed in elections in 2023.

 Nepal moved quickly on Wednesday to register his CPN-UML (Socialist) at the Election Commission with 95 Central Committee members, 58 among which have switched over with him from Oli’s UML. Bhim Rawal, Gokarna Bista, and Ghanashyam Bhusal, well-known second-echelon leaders, have not joined Nepal's new party, despite their role as mediators between the two leaders. They appear to have feared a backlash for supporting the NC, and also seen better prospects in elections if they stayed on in the UML.

 Ironically, Mahanta Thakur, who had also been demoted from the JSP's Central Committee for supporting Oli, appears to have benefited directly from Deuba's ordinance. Thakur would not have been able to gather the 40 percent of parliamentary party members he needed to register his JSP (Democratic) without the ordinance. The UML split despite efforts by the rank-and-file to keep it together only because Oli and Nepal could not get along.  Nepal accused Oli of authoritarianism, and Oli was angry about Nepal siding with the opposition alliance to unseat him.  But at the heart of it was an ego-clash between Nepal's top communists.

 'Nepal’s communist movement is built on the revolutionary vision of our forefathers and the sacrifices of thousands of martyrs and warriors, and we want to prevent it from collapse,' Madhav Nepal said in a statement.  “To achieve our goal, and to move in the direction of scientific socialism, we must take firm steps towards our national independence and self-respect.’ The UML was established in 1990 after the unity of two communist factions, and split before in 1997 only to be reunited three years later.  There is no reason why it cannot do so again if Oli and Nepal are out of the picture. 

 Without a doubt, Deuba's five-party coalition has been playing the long game, focusing on the local, provincial, and federal polls in 2023 and trying to rebound from its 2017 defeat. The bigger question now is how the hydra-headed five party alliance is going to divide up the spoils of government ahead of those elections. 

 But as farsighted as Deuba may be about political strategy, he has not been as efficient in forming a government to tackle the country’s multiple crises.  He has been unable to increase the size of his cabinet beyond four ministers, and Nepal's foreign and labor ministries do not have a leader at this critical time, even though thousands of Nepalis are awaiting repatriation in Afghanistan, which is controlled by the Taliban. The delay is due to Deuba having to balance conflicting claims to senior ministerial berths from his alliance partners.  He must appease his former adversary Pushpa Kamal Dahal, accommodate the ruling JSP, and reward Nepal for bringing in the swing votes that allowed Oli to be ousted. All the while, he has to keep rival factions within his own party led by Ram Chandra Poudel at bay.

 This political disarray among Nepal’s three biggest parties is to the advantage of the royal-Hindu-right parties who want to cash in on public disillusionment by flagging secularism, federalism and even republicanism as being unsuitable for Nepal. Rabindra Mishra of the alternative Bibeksheel-Sajha party has felt the public pulse, and knows there is considerable support for Nepal reverting to a Hindu state, if not a monarchy, and called for a referendum. 

 Factions in the other parties also sympathise with this potentially potent election agenda, some more openly than others.  The ferocious response that mainstream parties have given to Mishra demonstrates how vulnerable they have become; however, even this threat to overturn the Constitution has not been sufficient to put an end to the disagreements that exist between and within them. This, like all alliances, will fluctuate due to politicians' self-interest and focus on elections.

WRITTEN BY

Binod Kumar Simkhada