On Sunday, Maoist Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal was appointed Nepal’s Prime Minister by President Bidya Devi Bhandari with support from CPN (UML), effectively putting an end to the very coalition government formed to oust UML chair Oli from power in 2021.
Dahal finally has his coveted third term as Prime Minister, having last held the position in 2016. With support from seven political parties, his left-led alliance has a 169-majority in the House, even as his party is only the third-largest in parliament with 32 elected members.
Until Saturday, a day before the President’s deadline to form a majority government ended, Dahal had maintained his commitment to the Nepali Congress-led coalition. But the Maoist supremo backtracked at the last moment when he and Nepali Congress chair Sher Bahadur Deuba failed to reach an agreement over which one of them would become PM first under the new government.
Dahal’s desire to become prime minister seems to have overruled everything. As soon as Oli offered him the position on the condition of breaking away from the former alliance, all bets were off.
“The best interests of the party and party leaders have become secondary to the Chairman’s personal interests,” says a Maoist official. “Breaking the alliance just so he could get to be Prime Minister was a shameful political act.”
Had Dahal been a bit more patient, not only would he have been Prime Minister in two years, his party would also have had the posts of President and House Speaker, not to mention plum ministerial positions over the next five years.
As such, a continued alliance with the NC would have been to the benefit of many more Maoist leaders apart from himself. As of Monday morning, a Maoist Centre meeting has decided to appoint party vice-chair Narayan Kaji Shrestha deputy prime minister.
While Dahal has bagged premiership at the expense of his own party, Oli—whose UML is the second-largest in Parliament after the November elections— has successfully gained the upper hand once again, playing the long game by agreeing to give Dahal the first go at leading the government while bagging plum political positions for his party in the process.
Indeed, Dahal may be Prime Minister, but Oli is in power.
And with the left-led alliance now in power, the NC and Sher Bahadur Deuba — long considered a deft hand at parliamentary politics— have been left floundering.
Just like Dahal, Deuba’s quest to lead the government for the sixth time left him unable to make an objective assessment of his and his party’s political future. Now, Deuba, who once managed to become Prime Minister after winning only 23 FPTP seats in the election, finds himself in the opposition despite his Nepali Congress being the largest party in the House.
Caught in the crossfire of Deuba, Dahal and Oli’s political ambitions is Madhav Kumar Nepal and his CPN (Unified Socialist). Dahal and Oli had largely ignored Madhav Kumar Nepal during their power struggle which ultimately broke the Maoist-UML merger, the Nepal Communist Party.
Nepal subsequently grew closer with Dahal, breaking from the UML to eventually launch his own political party. Now, his party after a poor show in the local as well as national polls finds itself without national recognition in Parliament or the backing of a multi-party alliance.
Had Nepal not put his entire weight behind Dahal and focused on an election strategy and party expansion, perhaps CPN-US would not have missed the chance to become a national party by a few thousand votes.
A secretariat meeting conducted after Dahal’s abrupt exit from the coalition meeting in Baluwatar and subsequent foray to Oli’s residence in Balkot on Sunday was unable to dispel the uncertainty regarding the future of the CPN-US.
“After a serious discussion regarding recent political developments, we have decided to move forward in the best interests of the country, our people, and the party,” read the vague statement issued by CPN-US after the secretariat meeting.
The UML-Maoist alliance has also blindsided senior NC leader Ram Chandra Poudel, who had been banking on continuing the coalition with Dahal as Prime Minister so that he could become President, making his own backroom deals with Maoist and CPN-US leaders since before the election.
In the aftermath of the election, as Nepal’s top political leaders negotiated to form a government in the absence of a clear majority in parliament, there had been much discourse about how a more stable government could be formed through an NC-UML alliance. After all, such an alliance had been possible in 2013.
The Maoists make up a little more than 11% of the 275-member parliament. As such, the appointment of Dahal, who commands the third-largest party in the House, as Prime Minister is contrary to the people’s mandate. It has brought into question why elections matter when the results have no bearing on who leads the government.
But this is not the first time something of this nature has happened in Nepali politics. Rastriya Prajatantra Party leaders Lokendra Bahadur Chand and Surya Bahadur Thapa were elected Prime Minister in 1997 by the UML and NC respectively after the parties— who fought to restore multiparty democracy—failed to obtain a majority.
In the next 30 days, Dahal will have to obtain a vote of confidence from the House per Article 76(4) of Nepal’s constitution. As such, he will need support from all seven parties that supported his bid to become Prime Minister. This will mean that the new Prime Minister will spend the next month wheeling and dealing and negotiating.
Dahal, whose idea of democracy was rooted in armed battle, does not have the best record with human rights, freedom of speech, and Nepal’s larger political process.
But now as the Prime Minister, he needs to see beyond his own political interests and keep the lines of communication between Baluwatar, Budhanilkantha and Balkot open. This will be in the best interests of Nepal’s democracy, federalism, and republicanism.
from Nepali Times https://ift.tt/wTZ6nxc
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