Editorial
Outside of the mutual recriminations of the parliamentary party versus government, cooler heads are only now fathoming the deeper implications of the politics prime minister K.P. Oli has launched with the dissolution of parliament for elections. Whichever way the Supreme Court decision may go – for or against the dissolution —the aftermath is unsettling in the least. The scheduled election is deemed, for one, a near impossibility. If it does take place though, the results seem bleak for political stability. The Nepali Congress, for one, is optimistic of the results given the non-performance of a bumper majority communist party and the disputes within. However, the Congress policy of hunting with the hounds and running with the hares — opposing the dissolution of the house and pursuing electoral gains — is exposing suicidal duplicity complicating the constitutional mess further. As it is, more than the Nepali Congress, it is Oli’s own party that is opposing Oli and it has no agenda outside the streets in opposition regardless of the fight at the judiciary. By what both Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Madhav Nepal are saying, they have declared close to Jihad against Oli and his move with no hint of a compromise for elections. The turbulence this is to create renders the environments in Nepali politics and constitutionalism far from secure.
Indeed, it is not just Oli’s government faction that is hurt at the vehemence in the exchange of words. The two fighting factions have augured in an exchange of words that is not just vicious but borders on incivility in beating each other. This leads on to anticipate that actions on the streets and from the government will be more than vicious as tensions mount. The long term effects of such actions as may ensue threaten the country outright. This fear is gradually being expressed on all sides of the spectrum. How soon at the moment becomes mere speculation. Comrade Prachanda is goading his supporters on the streets and Oli is taunting from government, it is as if the clash is imminent. The consensus emerging is that the constitutional damage has already occurred. A constitution based on the sharing of the spoils of government and system can only crash when the spoils are tampered with. In a sense that is precisely what Prime Minister Oli is saying. He is saying that the constitution implemented five years ago is not allowing his three years old government to function because his detractors want their pound of flesh in every pie.
And, then, there is the perpetual ‘foreign hand’. Ruminating about the foreign design behind the current mess is an almost impossible task. Whether the foreign powers instigated Prachanda and comrades to press Oli and comrades to dissolve the House or whether Oli sought to solve his problems by the dissolution at foreign instigation is actually more than allegations to be traded in the fray. To conceive that our foreign friends have contributed to the current mess leads one to chilling speculations on what they want to achieve. They have achieved this instability in Nepal is for certain. What more?
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