Nepal: Does republican transition threatens political stability, still?

In the global context, Japan and Italy are often cited as nations that have had more governments since the end of the Second World War. Of them, Japan still prospered, for a variety of reasons while Italy continues to meander. In the sub-continental context, the Himalayan state of Nepal seems to be giving competition to the other two, year after year. The erstwhile mountainous kingdom has had 13 governments in 14 years, with nine prime ministers, since it became a republic in 2008. For the record, three of those prime ministers, namely, incumbent Pushpa Kamal Dahal, better known as ‘Prachanda’, from his days leading the Maoist underground insurgency against the monarchy, his arch-rival KP Sharma Oli of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist, Leninist) or CPN (UML) or just UML for short, and also Sher Bahadur Deuba of the nation’s GoP, namely, the Nepali Congress (NC), have served two terms each. For Prachanda, it is his third term in office. Before them all, the late Girija Prasad Koirala, the grand old man of Nepali politics, had done five stints as prime minister, four of them before the advent of multi-party democracy and the republic. ‘Girija babu’, as he was popularly known, was also the acting Head of State during the transition, 2007-08. Suffice is to point out that the political scenario was so confusing through the years of insurgency, the royal massacre and democratic transition, king Gyanendra Bikram Shah proclaimed himself as prime minister, from February 2005 to April 2006. That was after the political parties would not agree on an interim prime minister. Yet, at the end of it all, yes, old man Koirala took the post for the fourth time – only to continue in his fifth term, as the first head of government, after the transition and fresh elections in 2008. Since 2015, elections under the republican constitution have seen six governments under four prime ministers. Incidentally, the two terms for Oli and Deuba occurred during this phase. So has two of Prachanda’s three terms, including the present one, to which President Bidhya Devi Bhandari swore him in on 27 December 2022. If the government survives for a time, it may owe mainly to the inherent constitutional bar/protection against a no-confidence vote against the Prachanda team for the first two years. It is debatable if such a provision should be a part of a democratic constitution, or if it should be replaced by an effective anti-defection law, instead. Also, the provision does not come in the way of the UML withdrawing voting against the confidence-motion that the president has asked Prachanda to move in Parliament within 30 days. Tail wagging the dog? The real and immediate problem for Prachanda does not thus come from the Opposition Nepali Congress (NC)-led alliance. He is heading a coalition of left parties, a government in which his Nepal Communist Party (Maoist Centre), or Maoists, are in a minority. The government has a majority of 169 seats in the 275-member ‘Pratiniti Sabha’, or as the national Parliament is known. While 165 members are elected from single-member constituencies, and 110 are named from a party-list through proportional representation (PR). This is to ensure that smaller parties and their constituencies do not go unrepresented – as it was seen as an antithesis to democratisation and Republicanism. The Maoists have only 32 members in the new House against 49 earlier. The seven-party coalition partners under CPN (UML) leader and two-term Prime Minister Sharma Oli have won 78 seats, including three Independents – more than double the Maoists’ figure. Yet, it is less than the 94 seats that they had held in the previous House. The irony of it does not end there. As in many democracies, the party that won the single largest number of seats did not get to form the government. The Nepali Congress under two-time prime minister Deuba won 89 seats. Significantly, the score was 26 more than the party’s previous tally. Yet, by backing Prachanda for prime minister, UML’s Sharma Oli cocked a snook at the Congress. Ironically, in the past, Prachanda has worked with and under both, in the government – but with a difference. Oli out-smarted Prachanda when they were together. Though Oli may find it difficult to upset Prachanda’s apple-cart straightaway, yet with more than double the number of MPs, he can be expected to pressure the prime minister into yielding more political space than he may be willing. In simple terms, the ruling coalition is like the tail wagging the dog, but then the dog too can only bark, not bite, at least for now. Friction point The first big showdown could be when presidential polls become due in the summer. Incumbent President Bidhya Devi Bhandari owes her office to Oli, and had promulgated multiple laws as desired by the latter when he was Prime Minister. Most, if not all, those laws were later thrown out by the Supreme Court. Bidhya Devi is the widow of late Madan Bhandari, a popular UML leader who died in a road-accident in the early 90s. The president’s partisan actions and decisions, including the delay in the formation of the new government after the 2017 parliamentary polls, has not endeared Didhya Devi to many. That also owes to her more recent decision to dissolve Parliament at the instance of Oli, who was prime minister. How Prachanda and Oli go about identifying a common presidential candidate remains to be seen. That could be the first major friction-point for the coalition. Alternatively, it could be an occasion for the two parties, more importantly their leaders, to patch-up their differences. As may be recalled, Prachanda and the Maoists were feeling miserable and cheated under Oli’s care, and managed to retrieve some of the lost ground only after the Supreme Court, in 2021, invalidated the merger of their party and the UML. The court verdict was God-send for them. Traditional aspects For the landlocked tiny state of Nepal, the neighbourhood matters. How the new government, often identified with an adversarial China, handles bilateral relations and trilateral equations will be keenly watched in New Delhi. India has made the right moves for now. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the first world leader to congratulate Prachanda. “The unique relationship between India and Nepal is based on deep cultural connect and warm people-to-people ties,” he said, focussing on traditional aspects of bilateral relations and pushing contemporary controversies under the carpet. “I look forward to working together with you to further strengthen this friendship,” he added. The current mood is just right for the two nations to re-inject trust and respect into their relationship, which has been wavering over the past years. The most important irritant of recent times involved the erstwhile Oli government unilaterally re-writing the border between the two nations, and gazetting a new map, accordingly. India kept its diplomatic cool, and this has yielded results, but not enough for Kathmandu to revise the map to its original form. New Delhi would keenly watch and await Prachanda’s decision in the matter. Avoidable delay To be fair to the Nepali neighbours, after a long time, India did not become a campaign-point for any political party or group in the Parliament election. Of course, the Rashtriya Swatantra Party (RSP), a member of the UML coalition, was critical of India for building an embankment on the Mahakali River at Dharchula. No one contested that the construction was undertaken only on the Indian side, but it did lead to protests on the Nepali side, which alone the RSP highlighted. But the issue is not the one to upset bilateral relations in the normal course. Otherwise, a series of India-funded development projects were going on in full swing under the Oli government. There is no reason, as yet, to fear that their progress would be hampered under the new dispensation. There are other issues, too, but they are not expected to upset the applecart. One is about a fair deal for Nepal after India unilaterally demonetised its high-value currencies in November 2016. Indian rupee is negotiable currency in Nepal, and Reserve Bank of India (read: Government of India) is yet to sort out the issue of old Indian currency in Nepalis’ hands and those of Nepali banks, including the central bank. Yet, it is an avoidable delay, all the same, especially from the eyes of cash-strapped Nepal. Whither China However, India has to be cautious about every move by an adversarial China. Even a less aggressive China, in the past, had openly meddled in the internal affairs of Nepal, and also provoked anti-India sentiments, slogan-shouting and governmental action/inaction, as the case may be. Suffice is to point out that the Chinese midwifed the birth of the previous UML-Maoist coalition and their envoy in Kathmandu was openly meeting with the leaders of the two parties until it happened. Maybe because the Chinese have learnt their unfamiliar lessons in democracy after the coalition split, they too gave up. They were/are discreet this time round. Indications are that the Chinese may have used the good offices of Maoist leader Barshaman Pun, who chose that country over immediate neighbour India, for medical treatment. He is believed to have played a key role in the post-poll patch-up between the UML and Maoists. Yet, UML’s Oli is a restless leader, and his every next move will be keenly watched, as much in New Delhi and Beijing as in Kathmandu. Doklam-like stand-off It may sound far-fetched, but going by Chinese incursions and provocations of the recent years, it remains to be seen if they would create an incident on the tri-junction with India and Nepal, if only to test the greater loyalty of the present dispensation in Kathmandu. In such a situation, if it occurred, India should be keenly watching the Nepal government’s reaction as much as defending Indian territory. Under similar circumstances in 2017 over the ‘Doklam stand-off’, Bhutan sought India’s assistance, and New Delhi injecting the army in those parts alone helped diffuse the situation. For Kathmandu, a lot will depend on whose territory Chinese incursions actually occur – Nepal’s or India’s. Yet, over the short, medium and long terms, India too needs to keep a close watch on the post-transitional politics in Nepal. Unfortunately, up to now, the nation is still in the throes of democratic transition and Republican re-adjustment. That has also helped keep the older political parties and their over-ambitious leaders relevant, almost on a daily basis. Old, worn-out… Yet, a time may come, and soon, when the nation, especially the younger generation would have grown out of it all, and may be looking for a changed democratic metaphor and political conduct. The irony is that in similar circumstances elsewhere, it is the younger generation that has also taken the lead in providing the alternative, or take the first steps thereof, where it may have floundered. In a way, it is only a continuation of the process that was set in motion with the advent of democratic/Republican transition, when the post-insurgency Maoists and also the Madhesis emerged as legitimate politico-electoral forces. The two, in their own ways, pulled and pushed the Constitution-making process, delaying the outcome but all the same making it acceptable to  and representative of all sections of the Nepali society. Today, for instance, the Maoists’ vote-share has come down from 40 per cent in the first Constituent Assembly  elections of 2008 to 11 per cent in the 2022 parliamentary polls. Likewise, the Madhesis too have lost ground – 15 per cent to 10, but in their case the decline has been relatively slow. It is too early to say if their places have been taken by new political actors. But at least three parties, namely, starting with the RSP, which has supposedly attracted GenX voters, both inside the country and outside, have sprouted out of almost nowhere in the recent polls. Party founder Rabi Lamichchhane is also a popular TV talk-show host and has been able to access Nepalis outside the country, too – and in their drawing rooms, nearer home. Yet, the RSP remains an amalgam as the 20 MPs elected on its elected campaigned on their own steam. It remains to be seen how a central leadership could manage, control and direct them on issues, both inside and outside Parliament, after a point. On their cohesion, rather than division will remain their future success as a political entity. Likewise, the Madhesis, who identify themselves more with India, have seen disenchantment and divisions within their political groupings. There are two new parties in their midst, namely the Jaamat Party (JP) and the Nagarik Unmukti Party (NUP). They have won six and three seats, respectively. This is only a small beginning but a beginning all the same. How they build on it or waste their chance is another question that Nepalis, especially the old and worn-out parties and their ageing leaders would be watching with keen interest and equal concern. Stay at a distance… India has shown, for once, that it can stay at a distance and also watch from a distance how Nepalis elect their government without too much of external interference, as often alleged, respectively against India and China, alike. In continuing to do so, New Delhi may have to learn and fine-tune the art of working with the government that the nations in the neighbourhood elect, without being seen or accused of wanting a government of its choice – which anyway was not the truth, not that its protestations helped, either. In between, India too has to keep its fingers crossed, over the longevity of the present dispensation. As is known, in swearing in Prachanda as prime minister, the president gave him 30 days’ time to prove his majority in Parliament. It is a healthy precedent that the nation has possibly imbibed from neighbouring India. Communist China has nothing to offer in the parallel. That may also be the time when UML’s Sharma Oli may desire to throttle Prachanda, to try and bring him into his line of thinking and conduct, given especially his superior numbers. Yet, it will help only up to a point. For, in the worst- case scenario, Prachanda and the Maoists too can turn the tables on Oli. The Maoists could then join hands with the National Congress (NC), to form a new coalition government. That is only a theoretical possibility just now, and Sharma Oli too would be alive to it. The choice of prime minister will rankle, but the fact that the two parties have ruled together in the past, and Prachanda especially has nothing much to lose or choose from, may be the decider, also for Oli when he begins flexing his muscles! The writer is a Chennai-based policy analyst and political commentator. Views expressed are personal. Read all the Latest News, Trending News,  Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. 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