By Our Reporter
Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, the Maoist supremo, has become the most popular Prime Minister ever elected in Nepal by garnering all but two votes in the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
Of the 270 lawmakers, excluding RPP’s Pashupati Shumsher Rana who chaired the session, present in the House during the vote of confidence motion, 268 voted in favour of the Prime Minister while only Chitra Bahadur KC of Rastriya Janamorcha and Prem Suwal of Majdoor Kisan Party voted against the motion.
More surprising it was when the Nepali Congress also gave a vote to PM Dahal who had joined hands with KP Sharma Oli of the UML just hours before the deadline given by the President by deserting the NC-led coalition on December 25, 2022, and became the Prime Minister for the third time.
Now when all major parties gave votes to the PM. The parliament is now without main opposition although NC president Sher Bahadur Deuba in his address to the House session argued that his party would remain in the opposition even after giving votes to the PM. But what Deuba said did not match the constitutional provisions and international practices. However, Deuba may not hesitate to claim the facilities of the main opposition leader because he has already proved his mettle in adding anomalies in the parliamentary democracy.
It was Deuba who introduced ‘Prado’ and ‘Pajero’ culture in the parliamentary system, who dissolved the House even when there was no situation to hold elections and who forged an electoral alliance with the Maoists twice, asking the NC workers to vote for the Maoist candidates and punishing those who did not abide by his decree.
Although it is not known what forced Deuba to take the decision to give votes to Dahal this time, his act has irked the voters of the NC and the young leaders. It was reported that general secretaries Gagan Thapa and Bishwa Prakash Sharma and leaders Prakash Man Singh, Arjun Narasingh KC and Pradeep Paudel opposed the decision but they were helpless before the majority Deuba enjoys in the party committee and parliamentary party.
However, Deuba seemed to have taken the decision to weaken Oli’s presence in the ruling coalition and to increase the bargaining power for the post of President and Speaker. Maybe, he was also guided by India to do so, time will tell.
Interestingly, NC voted for Dahal days after its leader Ram Chandra Paudel, who was vying for the post of President, floated the idea of the government of national consensus. His views smelt a rat when Deuba decided to give the vote to Dahal. And if Paudel becomes the president, it will not be a surprise now.
When both the largest and the second largest parties in the parliament backed him, Dahal has now become the King from a kingmaker two weeks back. However, while trying to maintain a balance, he may become weak in terms of maintaining good governance. Now there is also a risk that Dahal may remain in the post of the PM for the full five years either in the support of the NC or even UML because both NC and UML try to prevent each other from grabbing power.
At the same time, there is another risk of the government becoming dictatorial in the absence of powerful opposition parties.
But this situation may not last long, because, during the election of the President scheduled for February later, Dahal has to stand either with the UML or the NC. If he backs NC, the present coalition will collapse and the old one may revive. And if he continues with the coalition, NC may announce the withdrawal of its support.
However, what NC did is against the established parliamentary norms, and it took the decision with greed for power among its handful of leaders who control both the party’s central committee and the parliamentary party. But the decision has sent negative messages to the mass, and the public ire against NC leadership could be noticed in the media and social sites.
Meanwhile, some political observers have indicated towards the Indo-West gameplan who insisted Deuba keep support on Prachanda so that a new coalition between NC and Maoist Center could be developed in future. It is said that the foreign forces are also playing the game for creating distance between Prachanda and K.P. Oli.
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