Nepal’s rudderless political leadership

Nov 28, 2021News

The UML General Convention in Chitwan with its lavish stage, and huge attendance sounds and feels like an election rally. And in a sense it is. The convention’s mascot is an upright rhino, and sure enough a video clip of real rhino sauntering to the venue has gone viral on Nepal’s cybersphere.

Nepal’s main opposition party is trying to elect its top party leaders this weekend, but the speeches are all about how the UML (Communist Party of Nepal Unified Marxist-Leninist) will emerge as the main party in polls scheduled for 2023, and the others will bite the dust.

Unconventional party conventions, Shristi Karki

This jamboree will be followed next week by the party convention of the ruling Nepali Congress (NC), which has been rescheduled seven times. The NC convention in Kathmandu will try to outdo the UML one in pomp and circumstance, also with an eye on impressing voters.

Nepal’s 2017 Constitution, as well as the NC’s own statute, dictates that national conventions be held every four years, setting four-year term limits for members at all levels of the party. The constitution does allow for an extension of up to one year under ‘exceptional circumstances’, but even if the pandemic can be described as ‘exceptional’, the convention should have been held by March this year.

In its 70-year history, the NC’s four yearly conventions have always been conducted without fail even during periods of crisis. Legal experts had started warning that the NC did not have any legal standing in Nepal’s politics.

“Nepali Congress is no longer a legitimate party as per the provisions of Nepal’s as well as the party’s own Constitution,” says Krishna Khanal, professor of political science. “To go about business as usual—as if it doesn't matter when the general convention is held as long as ward-level conventions are taking place—is deceitful."

Meanwhile, the number of active members in the NC has gone up by half a million in the days leading up to the convention, even as NC insiders admit that many party loyalists have defected in recent years.

Barring a few district and local level leaders who seem dedicated to doing their jobs, the NC has become trapped in an ‘elite nexus’. Experts agree that there is no justification in holding party conventions if the same party members are elected into leadership every time.

“The Nepali Congress will not go anywhere as long as tried and tested individuals are constantly brought back into leadership, and the country will not move forward until there is a complete overhaul of leadership,” says political analyst Puranjan Acharya.

Even the party’s leadership is concerned over what they see as a lack of a democratic culture within the NC. “When leaders disregard party rules and procedures for their self-interest, democracy within the party becomes weak.” says NC Central Committee member Dhanraj Gurung, “And the consequences of such actions are reverberating through Nepal’s branches of government at present."

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That criticism of the NC would fit the UML just as well, where current party president and former Prime Minister K P Oli has tried to ensure that he remains at the helm while sidelining all critics, even after the Madhav Kumar Nepal faction split off to form the Unified Socialists.

The UML convention is also taking place after a seven-year gap even though party rules dictated it should have been held in 2019. But the UML’s short-lived merger with Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s Maoist Centre in 2018 gave party leaders--who reasoned that the merger period should be considered null and void --as an excuse for not holding the conclave when it was supposed to.

“Such antics do not represent the principles of a party that was formed all those years ago to bring about societal transformation,” Khanal says.

The UML is fielding a symbolic 1,999 candidates elected from across Nepal in Chitwan to elect a new party leader. KP Oli runs largely unchallenged for the position of chair in the absence of previous contenders Jhala Nath Khanal and Madhav Kumar Nepal.

Oli seems to have adopted Chinese President Xi Jinping's style of ruling his party with an iron fist, and is certain to be reelected.

“It is not possible for anybody within the UML to become a Central Committee member if KP Oli does not approve. Philosophy and ideas are no longer welcome in the UML, just blindly following the leader’s instructions,” says analyst Acharya. "But then again, the UML has always been a one-man show.”

Nepal PM Oli goes it alone, Nepali Times

Meanwhile, Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s Maoist Centre (MC) has also announced its national convention to be held in December – and is also expected to kick off election campaigning. It is yet to be seen if the Maoists will actually hold it as scheduled, but it is clear that in the absence of leaders like Mohan Baidya and Baburam Bhattarai, there is no clear contender within the party to unseat Dahal from leadership.

“When one individual has complete control over the decision-making process in the party, it is always to the detriment of democracy,” says Ram Karki, himself a Maoist leader.

Insiders say the Maoist Dahal and the UML Oli are similar, with Dahal repeatedly sidelining rivals within the party. Dahal took control of finalising ministerial appointments during cabinet expansion in this as well as the previous Deuba-led coalition government, failing to include any member from his occasional challenger Narayankaji Shrestha’s faction of the party.

Dahal used to repeatedly accuse Oli of keeping out other leaders during his time as a co-chair of the now-defunct NCP. "Our chairman, who accused KP Oli of trying to steer the ship alone in the NCP, has now become more authoritarian than Oli,” says a Maoist standing committee member.

Analysts say that ten years after the end of the armed conflict, the Maoists have still not been able to rise to national stature due to Dahal’s disinterest in building any kind of functional institutional party structure. “How will the Maoist Centre be able to hold a national conference when there is a complete lack of an organisational structure within the party?" asks Acharya.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal is still Prachanda, Mukesh Pokhrel

The same can be said of the Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP) and the newly-minted Loktantrik Samajbadi Party (LSP), which have not been able to hold any conference in the absence of clear guiding principles within their parties.

Insiders say that the steady decline of Nepal’s political parties, and especially the Communists, can also be attributed to the increasing number of crony capitalists and other shady characters joining politics, like Lharkyal Lama, a Maoist MP who has been been involved in fraud as well as illegal weapons possession.

Indeed, businessmen like Durga Prasain--who owns the Jhapa based B & C Medical College and who joined the UML in October--have been entering politics in droves.

“What does it mean for the party if businessmen can join without being vetted?” asks Ram Karki of the Maoists.

Indeed, all parties seem to be vying for the attention of influential funders from the business community, either as donors or even as party members. As elections become more expensive, leaders are trying to actively dismantle party principles, only to invoke the very same values when convenient, says MP Hridayesh Tripathi.

Maoist leader Karki agrees, saying, “Nepal's political parties do not seem to be guided by principles at all."

NC central member Dhanraj Gurung says that it has become difficult to tell if leaders within Nepal’s political parties are politicians or businessmen.

“In the absence of either a national or party mission, the leaders of the NC, UML, and the Maoist Centre went about fulfilling their personal mission of earning money,” says professor Khanal.

The only way for Nepal’s politics to cleanse itself from all this dirt is to find a new direction with a new generation of Young Turks taking over the mantle from ageing politicians who have been holding on to power for decades.

Says professor Khanal: “If Nepali politics is to emerge from the stagnant swamp it is in right now, the leaders who are still holding on to power must be thanked for their service and retired, to be replaced by a younger crop of leaders for a complete reform of Nepal’s political parties.”

Read also: Old wine in old bottle in Nepal’s politics, Shristi Karki