Khadga Prasad Oli is not prime minister for nothing. He may be ridiculed for his gift of the gab. His sense of timing, however, is what has got him where he is. One tends to forget that Oli engineered Manmohan Adhikary’s last minute vote from hospital to ramrod the Mahakali treaty through parliament. The timing of the unification of the UML and the Maoists was to have been watched as it sucked the Maoists away from the Nepali Congress with whom the Maoists were election partners. Oli very quietly decided that he need not be rule by the edicts of his Party’s central committee only some months back stunning the party leadership And then timed his entry into the operation theatre for his second kidney transplant accordingly. These days he rules the roost through the coronavirus pandemic timed as an impressionable invalid fighting while recuperating. Monday saw the Prime Minister suddenly pull another card from his sleeve. He timed two ordinances so swiftly that his party central committee saw discussing the ordinances redundant as President Bidya Devi Bhandary had already signed it into law. Now, political parties can legally split with not both but any of the two requirements of forty percent members of the party central committee or parliamentary committee and the parliamentary constitutional committee need not have the opposition’s attendance as mandatory to function. Of course, Oli’s own party central committee had to remain assuaged with the government logic that key constitutional appointments had long been pending because of the opposition’s non-cooperation necessitating the amendment. As for the measure facilitating party splits, government simply said that it wasn’t designed for it own party.
And, so, Oli’s latest folly has set tongue’s wagging. Given the fact that government- party relations have been at odds for months now, it is difficult to accept the government logic that amending, or simplifying, the party splinter process cannot apply to the government party. Of course, such a splinter if made possible in other parties could benefit the government party as well which could have helped in assuaging suspicions in the party central committee. (But, did it really?). The Nepali Congress as the ‘dormant’ opposition party merely spilled some words against the doing away of the opposition’s role in the constitutional committee. (What else?, one might ask.) Oli has chosen this moment to have sway over key constitutional amendments now and has made party splinters simpler to be timed to his advantage as well. In the process, he has demonstrated how swiftly he can get amendments and ordinances through. Whatever his intents, it seems certain that the curtain in falling for a new Act with Oli center stage.
Login to add a comment