BRK break up

The 12-day political partnership of Kulman Ghising with Rabi Lamichhane and Balen Shah that ended on Saturday was brief even by Nepali standards. 

The Ujyalo Nepal Party backed by Ghising and Lamichhane’s RSP had inked a deal to unite on 29 December, one day after Balen Shah formed an agreement with the RSP to contest the election under the party’s banner.

The alliance between the RSP and Ghising is said to have fallen apart after Ghising asked for institutional and ideological changes within the party, and for members of his team to be given key positions including senior vice-chair and general secretary, as well his stipulation that more than two dozen of his camp be appointed members of RSP’s central committee. 

Ghising had also been less than happy about some of his 18 proposed candidates being left off RSP’s Proportional Representation list, and had taken issue with the priority order of those from his camp on the docket. 

The merger between Ghising and Lamichhane happened after last minute negotiation before the deadline for the submission of the PR candidate list after multiple previous rounds of discussions between BRK had failed. Ghising had agreed to sit down one final time with the two leaders following a last-ditch effort by youth leaders including Sudan Gurung.

Ghising following his resignation last week had told the press that his partnership with Lamichhane and Shah had not come into effect even though his UNP had formally signed to merge with RSP. The party, which has been hailed as a formidable alternative political foil to legacy outfits in the March polls, had come under considerable criticism for its PR list, most of which included influential public figures as opposed to qualified people who would represent the nation’s socio-culture, socio-economy, diverse ethnic makeup, and geography. 

On Saturday, following news of the RSP-UNP dissolution, Ghising was announced as the chair of the UNP, of which he had only remained the patron so far.

That Ghising broke away from Lamichhane and Shah does not come as a shock. Analysts had already predicted the clash of egos between the three figures who have gained popularity through personality rather than ideology driven politics. 

It is also not surprising that the new trio has been following the playbook of make-up and break-politics written by the Oli-Deuba Dahal trio that has defined Nepali politics for the last decade. 

As the RSP deals with its growing pains, Nepal’s established parties are busy preparing for the polls even as they confront infighting within their own institutions. The Nepali Congress is seeing widening rifts between factions brought on by power struggles between old and newer leadership within the party. The  special general convention called by General Secretaries Gagan Thapa and Bishwo Prakash Sharma began on Sunday amid party president Sher Bahadur Deuba and other senior leaders’ refusal to endorse and attend the event. 

The special general convention was called after it was endorsed by 54% of NC’s general convention delegates, but the party leadership has been adamant about holding the general convention to choose a new party head after the election.

The decision to go ahead with the special general convention has been opposed by numerous NC district chapters for going over the head of party leadership. Even so, leaders of the Thapa-Sharma faction expect 60% of the party’s delegates to attend the event. 

The Thapa and Sharma faction want the party to contest the election under a new leadership, seeming to have a better grasp on the sheer lack of popularity of the party, especially after GenZ protests. The leaders are banking on having a better outcome at the March polls if there is a change in party leadership. 

Leftist leaders like Pushpa Kamal Dahal of the NCP and Baburam Bhattarai have also been busy reaching out to Indian leadership in the weeks leading up to the election.

And while pro-monarchy leaders like Durga Prasai—while initially calling for a royalist mobilisation following the September protests—seem to be laying low lately, only emerging after the Balen-Rabi merger to call them “political actors groomed by foreign powers”, former king Gyanendra during his Prithvi Jayanti address on Saturday took the opportunity to deliver a particularly somber address to the nation. 

Gyanendra commented on the youth frustration that led to the September revolt, linking it to the ongoing exodus of young people and capital, as well as geopolitics, and criticising Nepal’s political leadership of “repeatedly using the youth but not understanding their needs”.

“Yesterday, there was concern that there was no development in the country, but today there is a bigger worry that the country itself might not survive,” Gyanendra said in his remarks. “This country was not built, nor will it be built, by speeches, magic or miracles.”