Oli has the historic opportunity to make a difference
By Bihari Krishna Shrestha
In the latest, fast-paced paradoxical turn of events in Nepali politics celebrations were quickly followed by despair. Since the Nepal constitution did not provide the authority for the PM to go for the midterm election at per his convenience, the apex court’s decision to restore the House was welcomed with great glee by the Dahal-Nepal combine of the erstwhile NCP to the extent that they even stuffed Laddoo sweets in each others’ mouth. Their sight was now clearly fixed on dislodging recalcitrant Oli from premiership by using their clear majority in the various structures in the party as well as in the parliamentary party.
But that excitement did not last even a week. The Supreme Court’s second verdict, awarding the name of the party, NCP, to the pre-existing party with the same name, sent the situation back to status quo ante, that is, the identity of the two pre-unification parties, the UML and Maoist Centre, was resurrected.
Bhagbanda-induced conflict
In itself, this should not have been a crisis. Since Madhav Nepal and Jhalanath Khanal along with other leaders and members in their orbit had been going after Oli for the alleged sake of Bidhi, otherwise, the sanctified operating procedure that, according to them, enjoins on PM Oli to abide by the directives of the party. But Oli himself took it only as a euphemism for bhagbanda, the unholy system of booty distribution peculiar to multiparty politics in Nepal, under which they too wanted to have their say in the award of appointments and contracts by the government. Thus, they too wanted to be autonomous centres of power in their own right. But Oli refused to give in. While Nepal and Khanal had sidelined him during their own heyday in power, he believed that it was his own popularity that had delivered the massive electoral success to the NCP. This discontent brought the Nepal-Khanal combine opportunistically closer to Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda who had his own axe to grind against Oli due to the latter having allegedly reneged on the power-sharing deal made during the UML-Maoist Centre unification. As this new formation, now known as Prachanda-Nepal alliance, with its majority in the party committees began steadily cornering Oli, the latter, with the extraordinary support of President Bidya Devi Bhandari, dissolved the lower house of parliament, despite the constitution not making such provision, which the apex court eventually restored. However, during the precious time in between, Oli managed to woo a number of Maoist stalwarts to his side, including elevating a few of them as ministers. Thus, when the apex court delivered the second verdict as mentioned above, there was a new show in town.
Maoists in crisis
But Oli’s move coupled with the court verdict restoring the pre-unification identity of the UML and Maoist Centre now portends a serious existential crisis for Prachnda’s outfit. No sooner than the next meeting the Prachanda-Nepal alliance was getting underway, the UML members, now unwilling to be seen spending too much time with Prachanda, started walking out of it one by one like the rats deserting the sinking ship. Prachanda was no longer useful for their war of bhagbanda against Oli.
For Prachanda it fared much worse and embarrassing. While all of the UML members deserted him, none of the 23 Maoist leaders in the Oli camp came back to his fold. What is worse, it has not only been the most massive desertion for his party, further indications are that it could only be the tip of the iceberg. While very few new members would opt to join this party of former killers and looters, joining a new party has the great attraction of adopting a new identity.
For a while Prachanda was also known as the great schemer and tactician in political gamesmanship, an image cultivated more by his opportunistic deserting and aligning with various parties. But clearly, he overplayed his hand. For instance, during Oli’s earlier stint as PM, Prachnda’s party was a coalition partner. But one day he abruptly withdrew from the coalition and in less than twenty-four hours of having done so, had the temerity to table a vote of no-confidence against the same government and allied with the Nepali Congress. When it was time for local bodies’ election, he persuaded the NC president Sher Bahadur Deuba to eschew NC’s own candidature for Mayoral election in Bharatpur–to the great dismay of the NC’s Chitawan chapter–and to support and canvass for Prachanda’s daughter, Renu Dahal instead for the same. But then, sometime later, he again deserted the NC and merged his party with Oli’s UML, apparently in the hope of leading a major communist front in Nepal.
But, Oli apparently has a long memory. Clearly, he was lying in wait for Prachanda to exact the price of earlier backstabbing and more. As things unfolded over the last three years of having merged into NCP, Prachanda, although a co-chair of NCP, found himself only on the receiving end. He never got to succeed Oli as PM nor preside over the party as its de facto head. He was regularly humiliated publicly and finally, had to helplessly witness Oli’s poaching of a major chunk of his party’s elite leadership ranks.
Clearly, Prachanda will have a lot of explaining to do in his own party for this glaring failure as its longtime leader, except that there seems to be nobody else in his party with the stature necessary to replace him. In any case, Maoist Centre seems clearly headed only one way–downhill.
Oli the leader
PM Oli himself stands at the threshold of history. Having outsmarted Prachanda at just about every turn of their prolonged confrontation the last three years, Oli has established himself as the smartest politician in post-1990 Nepal. Unlike most others, he does have things to his credit. For instance, his positive contributions include his decision to turn to China and enter into several far-reaching agreements with the northern neighbour during India’s foolish blockade of Nepal in 2015. The distinctiveness of this move lies in the fact that nobody else in his place, not Deuba, not Prachanda, not Girija (if he were to be alive), and definitely, not the Madhesi leaders would have dared to stand up to India and embraced its archrival China. This one move has since fundamentally altered the very nature of trans-Himalayan geopolitics in a manner significantly beneficial for Nepal. Ever belligerent India will never think of blockading Nepal again.
Similarly, while Oli has been severely criticized for denigrating the dignity of the office of PM by making himself available for prolonged, near surreptitious rendezvous with India’s RAW chief at the dead of the night, he is still applauded for his Zee News interview and even more importantly, his meeting with India’s foreign secretary in which he maintained that India must change its (browbeating) policy towards Nepal. His strong advocacy of Nepal’s interest vis-à-vis India was lauded even by his detractors.
Oli’s loyal following
But then, Olijee has also distinguished himself as being the most corruption-tainted politician at the same time. The big-ticket scandals include the Wide Body scam, Yeti Holdings underhand dealings, Ncell undue tax relief and so on. When it comes to the much-publicized Omni scam Olijee’s daring was unparalleled. He just brushed it aside by saying, “there has been no corruption in it, because I said so”.
People often wonder what makes Oli so beholden to such massive financial intake even as he has already committed his own private property to public trust. The answer probably lies in his style of politicking. While he has many detractors, he is also the one with the biggest loyal following in his party. His reputation among his followers has been that under any circumstances, come hail or brimstone, he does not let them down. But such loyalty needs much financial wherewithal in a country where democratic politics has always been about money from day one of its restorations in 1990 and where just about every single politician remains a corrupt man. Feeding the beast has always been the task of a successful leader. Just recently, to impress his detractors Oli had to organize massive rallies all across the country in which every single rally goer’s needs had to be fully taken care of: their travels, food, lodging and some pocket money too. In a country where its democratic politics has kept most people chronically uneducated and impoverished, such everything-paid-for pageantry remains the main barometer of politicians’ popularity.
History stares Oli in the face
As things stand, given his current credentials and stature, septuagenarian Oli also has the responsibility to set the country on a course of better governance before he retires. He knows that he has been the principal player in imposing federalism, secularism and republicanism on the people without their informed consent. He also knows that Nepal’s democracy has been about feudal Thalus–who have traditionally extracted resources from the community without any accountability to go with it– masquerading as politicians and people’s representatives and robbing the impoverished people left, right and centre. And nobody goes to jail for such a crime. Prachanda and his ilk have avoided transitional justice all along and it has left the hundreds of thousands of the victims, including thousands from the UML ranks, crying for justice all these years. Then he also has to show that Nepal’s democracy too punishes the corrupt. The beginning has to be made by the CIAA by prosecuting those known for massive corruption.
Oli has also been known as his party’s expert on decentralization for many years. So he is surely aware that when authority is genuinely devolved to the people themselves like in the case of our ubiquitous forest user groups and mothers’ groups, things happen. Unlike in the so-called palikas that now remain the hotbed of boundless corruption all across the country, the users themselves directly participate in the decision making of these grassroots institutions and hold their leaders to account twenty-four seven. Since no two democracies are alike on this planet, Nepal too must forge its own democracy based on its own lessons of history.
The writer can be reached at: biharishrestha@gmail.com
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