Courtesy: Online Khabar
By Our Reporter
Political instability has been the order of the day in Nepal for decades. No Prime Minister since the democratic movement of 1951 that overthrew the Rana regime has completed a full term of five years. The instability deepened further after the political movements of 1990 and worsened after the political uprising of 2006 which overthrew the monarchy. Although the political parties boasted of the promulgation of the new constitution in 2015 which they argued would be a panacea for political instability. But after the general election of 2017, we got at least three Prime Ministers and led five different coalition governments. Even though the Nepal Communist Party formed by merging the UML and the Maoist Centre won nearly two-thirds seats in the federal parliament in the 2017 election, the government led by its chairman KP Oli could not last for three years.
Even after the 2022 polls, three governments have been formed under Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal in 16 months. And no one knows the fate of the Dahal government as well. In 16 months after he assumed office, Prime Minister Dahal has already led three different coalition governments of rival parties.
His party won 32 seats with the backing of the Nepali Congress in the November 2022 election but formed government in the support of the CPN-UML by ending the pre-election alliance the same year, but he ended the alliance with the UML in less than three months and formed another government with the Nepali Congress. But he again made a U-turn in 11 months and formed another government with UML and Rastriya Swatantra Party in April this year. Now when his government has fallen into crisis because of the RSP Chairman Rabi Lamichhane’s involvement in cooperative frauds, which the Nepali Congress has made an issue of prestige and the UML and the PM have thrown their energy to protect Lamichhane, and no one knows how the dispute will be resolved.
NC has reiterated its stance to obstruct the House until a parliamentary committee on Lamichhane is formed while UML and RSP have outright rejected this. If the House is obstructed, the government cannot table the budget, and if the committee is formed as demanded by NC, RSP will quit the government leading to the fall of the Dahal-led government.
While the fall and formation of the government have become uncertain in the centre, worse is the situation in the provinces. All the governments formed in six of the seven provinces after the 2022 elections have fallen in 16 months while the one in Madhes has recently fallen on minority after the split in the Janata Samajwadi Party-Nepal. Koshi saw at least four governments in 16 months while four others saw three governments with Bagmati having the same chief minister for these months although he changed the coalition parties three times.
Obviously, greed for power among the party leaders and a lack of political culture have led to this instability. The leaders do not feel shame to change their bedfellows overnight. It is evident from what Prime Minister Dahal did in the last 16 months.
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