In June, documents dating as early as 2015 dug up and leaked by enterprising Nepali journalists proved beyond doubt that Nepal’s political leaderships of all hues, and, sadly, the only trusted institution left in the nation—Nepal Army—worked in concert for at least seven years to put Nepal under the security umbrella of the State Partnership Program, trading national security for personal rewards.

MCC was signed in 2017, just two years after Nepal sought a spot under the increasingly holey, and, as evident in Ukraine, ineffective umbrage of the United States, which has, for 75 years now, worked extra time to project itself as the global police promoting and protecting human rights, democracy, and many other fine-sounding ideas delivered with not just mixed, but contrary results, to nations like Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, and now in Ukraine, to mention a few. Ironically, all those countries were left worse off than they were before American intervention.

Nepal’s location, between two of the world’s most populous nations that have prospered despite their diametrically opposite political systems, was not instructive enough to the country’s leadership and top commentators whose priority in the past 30 months of a global pandemic has been focused more on salvaging their rapidly dwindling personal fortunes and clout, instead of warding off the perils increasingly apparent on Nepal’s future as a sovereign nation.

Losing the enviable status of being among a handful of nations that does not celebrate Independence Day because we were never colonized seems game now to those used to receiving and living off on Western financial inducements.

In fact, whether Nepal’s long-held policy of Panchasheel and non-alignment remains intact is already quite debatable.

The deliberate promotion of commentators, with little love for this nation, leaves little doubt that Nepali media, badgered by the economic fallout of the pandemic, has now become a willing accomplice in propaganda that benefits nations other than our own.

The MCC hype      

Opinions in Nepal on the ratification of the MCC grant—touted as the largest ever and therefore a quick-fix savior for Nepal’s economy hurt by 2015 quakes, an Indian blockade shouldered quite unsuccessfully by some Madhesi parties, and then the pandemic—have ranged from self-congratulatory ones persuaded by the benighted belief that the 75-years-old global order led by America and her allies remains intact, to cautionary ones that have come from geopolitically informed but widely ignored sections of the Kathmandu intelligentsia.

Suggestions, by those holding the former opinion, that injection of the grant money would immediately rescue Nepal’s tanking economy, have proven wrong.    

On the other hand, economic shocks of the war north of the Black Sea, now being felt in all continents, increasingly indicate that the timing of the grant’s ratification was inauspicious and also quite unfortunate for Nepal, for it put Nepal on the side of a global power that is making efforts to salvage its failing global dominance.

Notably, MCC’s ratification came after US official Fatema Z Sumar gave Nepal, a $34 billion economy, the deadline of “no later than February 28” to accept the $500 million grant, to be spread over a five-year period. The second option was becoming ineligible for the grant.

Quite surprisingly, Sumar’s warning worked. Nepal’s parliament chose to placate a long-distance friend at the cost of disappointing her neighbor China, whose mere assurance that she stands behind Russia has spooked the West.

Swing states and vassal states

While Nepal sought to join the American security bandwagon, the past 100-plus days have prompted an increasing number of nations to prioritize domestic interests over the interests of America and Europe. Much of the world no longer believes America has the ability to protect them from nations projected by America as perennial ‘villains’.

In essence, unlike Belarus, the vassal state of Russia, Bhutan, the vassal state of India, and Ukraine, the vassal state of the United States, more and more nations are moving towards being what the leaders of the old world order are now terming “swing states”.

Cracks, for instance, have appeared in groupings formed around the world during the past 75 years of uninterrupted US sway over the planet, giving rise to an increasing number of swing states.

India, for example, has disappointed the West with its stance, of lack of it, on both Russia and China, despite an ongoing border standoff with the latter in Ladakh.

Whether Nepal’s long-held policy of Panchasheel and non-alignment remains intact is already quite debatable. 

Indian bluster on Ladakh, it appears, is more for public consumption, or to placate voters, while realpolitik is veering increasingly towards commercial interests. Though India dislikes China, Indians love Xiaomi, which, at the moment of this writing commands a quarter of India’s smartphone market.

In 2019, Narendra Modi used bluster tactics to placate a populace enraged by the Pulwama incident in which 40 Indian soldiers died.

Goaded by commentators, some of whom went as far as suggesting it was time to nuke Pakistan, Modi responded by bombing some vacant sites in Balakot, Pakistan. Doctored reports were then fed to the Godi media that vengeance had been exacted.   

Meanwhile, the meeting of QUAD nations held in Tokyo in May, which the US had hoped would lead to the evolution of a NATO-like alignment in Asia-Pacific, but against China, failed because of Indian reluctance.

This prompted White House Indo Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell to term India a “swing state”, and some QUAD members to term India an “unreliable partner”.

Such remarks have hardly mattered to an increasingly assertive India.

A week later, following US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s criticism of India for the rising religious intolerance and “attacks on people and places of worship”, India was quick to respond with criticism of the US for “racially and ethnically motivated attacks, hate crimes and gun violence”.

At the GLOBSEC Forum in Slovakia earlier this month, Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar quite famously favored India’s ties with Russia and China, rejecting American-led insistence that it condemn Russia.

Tellingly, he said “Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.”

He added, “…China and India happened way before anything happened in Ukraine. So the Chinese don’t need a precedent somewhere else in the world on how to engage us or not engage us or be difficult with us or not be difficult with us.”   

Nations, across the globe, with the exception of Sweden and Finland, are increasingly prioritizing their own interests, and looking for ways to bolster their own defense capabilities, having outsourced security to the United States for seven decades.

Meanwhile, cheap Russian crude is making its way to India’s privately-run refineries and then being exported to Europe, which while banning the import of Russian crude, has shown no qualms in buying the same from refineries run by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries. Ambani is among Narendra Modi’s chief electoral financer, which guarantees the former major policy favors and indemnity that the likes of Carlos Slim Helu once enjoyed in Mexico, guaranteeing Helu complete control over that country’s telecom services.

The past 100 days have seen an increasing number of countries shying away from the US and Europe’s war against Russia. The war has variously been termed “total war” by the Americans, a precursor to World War III by Goerge Soros, who has made an unenviable name for himself by attempting to, to devastating effects, socially engineer the global south, and a war with no end because it is essentially a war of attrition—one aimed at weakening Russia instead of defeating it.   

Last month, in another blow to the United States, ASEAN nations refrained from mentioning Russia in their joint declaration.

Having banned oil imports from Russia and desperate to find an alternative, US president Joe Biden this month almost visited Saudi Arabia. The visit has been scuttled, at least for now, because it would mean Biden sitting together with Mohammad bin Salman, alleged by US intelligence to have issued the order to kill Jamal Khashoggi four years ago.  

Meanwhile, Japan is mulling to bolster and expand its counter-strike capability from intercepting and shooting down hostiles, to attacking their launch bases, including, if necessary, China’s Central Military Commission (CMC).

The CMC is China’s highest national defense organization, directly led by President Xi Jinping.  

World order is changing

All these developments are evidence of a fast-crumbling old world order. Nations able to grasp the gravity of the situation are framing strategies to deal with the unknown that is emerging.

In the evolving context, Nepal’s leadership appears blissfully unaware of the central role China is set to play in whatever will emerge.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba is busy defending his corrupt Finance Minister who tweaks the national budget to benefit certain businessmen. At times, he is spotted yawning beside Narendra Modi in Lumbini, complacent perhaps in the misplaced belief that with Modi by his side, he has the world by his side.

Someone should remind our yawning prime minister of what Napoleon Bonaparte famously said: “China is a sleeping giant. Once she wakes up, she will shake the world.”

China woke up some 20 years ago when it gained entry into the World Trade Organization. Ever since, it has been a story of China’s steady rise and the West’s steady decline.

A neighbor that has shaken the world to the extent that it sends bombers while QUAD leaders meet in Tokyo, regularly sends fighters over Taiwan, and yet gets away with tame statements of condemnation from the United States isn’t one to be taken lightly.

While India appears to have grasped the tectonic global shifts and is cozying up with China and Russia, Deuba appears confident that MCC will salvage Nepal’s economy and SPP will protect Nepal from military threats.

Instead of reaping benefits from her geographical location between two increasingly assertive economic and military powers in the world, of which one is set to unseat America as the world’s superpower in the not-so-distant future, Nepal has clearly regressed to what her founder Prithvi Narayan Shah said of her over 250 years ago.

The key difference is that the yam has aged and is at its historical weakest, while both the boulders have become mighty and less friendly. 

Bikash Sangraula is a Kathmandu-based journalist and author.

@SangraulaBikash

The students had gone out of their way to put up a good show, out of respect—reverence even—for the storied democrat who had suffered so much for democracy and had finally arrived to set things right. From teachers, the students heard stories of brutalities he had suffered for his political beliefs, of which one was about his tongue having been electrocuted while in prison, leaving him with the speech impediment that exists to this day.

The event at Dipendra Police School was preceded by confusion and nervousness surrounding the preparations, the principal one being whether the Home Minister was ‘Deuba’ or ‘Deupa’. For years it had been the latter for Kathmandu folks, but suddenly it turned out that the proper far-western surname was the former.

And ‘Deuba’ it has been in the decades since for the politician who astutely parlayed the power of his far-western origins to reach the topmost rungs of power, managing to wrest the Nepali crowns more than once from the exalted Koiralas. And this, Deuba has managed with a mix of parochial nepotism and astute opportunism. IGP Rana would have known.

IGP Rana, for whom the post of Additional Inspector General of Police had been created for the first time in the history of Nepal Police, as a consolation for his junior Hem Bahadur Singh having preceded him, was not allowed to complete his term. Deuba not only sacked him unceremoniously in favor of his far-west compatriot Moti Lal Bohara but did more. He first asked Rana for a list of officers who deserved promotions. After getting the list of about 20 capable officers, Deuba sacked all of them together with Rana. Some were reinstated later.

The tall, affable Rana died soon after his removal from the post, and there were those senior police officers who said he had lost his spirit after Deuba’s manhandling. Deuba’s penchant for meddling in the police force was in full display the last time in 2017 when as fourth-time prime minister he appointed fellow far-westerner Jay Bahadur Chand as police chief ignoring regulations. The appointment was later revoked by the Supreme Court.

Deuba 5.0 seems to have decided to be there just in name, making a series of mistakes and presenting himself as a laughing stock.

Much has been written about Deuba’s previous four terms as premier. During the First People’s Movement of 1990, Deuba, like many leaders emerged into the front ranks of national politics after years as a junior party cadre. They have all lost the aura they carried because of daring jailbreaks, lengthy jail terms, exile, and innumerable other kinds of suffering. It would seem that the nation and the people have been compensating these leaders ever since, an end to this nowhere in sight. 

So poor is Deuba’s track record that ahead of his fifth term, pundits overly critical of his predecessor KP Oli fine-tuned the narrative on governance in favor of the incoming PM, to an extent that some said all Deuba needed to do in his fifth term was “do no harm”.

Manipulation by Dahal

Unlike what some prefer to believe, Deuba did not get his fifth term because of foreign powers. A chain of unfortunate events kick-started by Pushpa Kamal Dahal to capture the then NCP is what has landed Deuba his fifth term on a tray. Dahal first tried to oust Oli through machinations within the then NCP’s so-called ‘secretariat’. When that did not work, Dahal wooed Madhav Kumar Nepal away from Oli, to vote against his own party and for Deuba. Essentially, Dahal presented the reluctant Deuba with an offer he could not refuse. Once he got the unexpected post, Deuba and his henchmen and henchwomen have decided to settle in and make the most of it.

Dahal’s chicanery was ‘unfortunate’ because the various activities he foisted upon the polity destroyed the credibility of institutions—the legislature, the judiciary, and the presidency. Of them, the legislature has been held hostage by murder-accused Speaker Agni Sapkota who has been misusing his office to give Dahal the powers that are highly disproportionate to the Maoist party’s strength in Parliament. This has left Deuba helpless, something that the recent American delegation for MCC witnessed first-hand.

Dahal and Sapkota have worked in concert to weaken Parliament, derail the USD 500 million grant project that is the MCC, and leave transitional justice in suspended animation. Deuba is left to take the blame and look like the culprit. Indeed, the media moguls and their editors, as well as the Kathmandu intelligentsia, prefer to blame the failures of the ‘gathabandhan’ on Deuba’s incapacities while protecting the real culprit—Dahal.

Unlike what some prefer to believe, Deuba did not get his fifth term because of foreign powers. A chain of unfortunate events kick-started by Pushpa Kamal Dahal landed Deuba his fifth term on a tray.

Managing a prime ministership foisted on him, the spark seems to have gone out of Deuba this time around. While some would have thought he might want to leave a legacy of good deeds and probity to make up for so many misdemeanors of the past, Deuba 5.0 seems to have decided to be there just in name, making a series of mistakes and presenting himself as a laughing stock, which incongruously ends up projecting Dahal as the democratic sage and the constitutionalist.

Indeed, the Maoist supremo’s fingerprints are all over Nepal’s present crisis, even though the media and intelligentsia refrain from calling him out and point all fingers at the hapless Deuba. Seeing his political future in peril, Dahal invited Chinese micro-management in Nepal to capture the NCP. When that did not work out, he worked to make Deuba the prime minister, but then Deuba went and miffed the Chinese by sending a team to look at the alleged border dispute in the far north-west. Dahal’s hopes for Beijing’s blessings were thus momentarily dashed, which has made it all the more important for him to oppose MCC to get back in the good books of the northern handlers.

Dahal is also desperate for a helping hand from Beijing because he has over the years effectively burnt his bridges to the south, which, in any case, seems to be on the lookout for a carrier of Hindutva in Nepal—from within the Nepali Congress if possible. While Dahal is a contortionist who could even present himself as a Hindutva and monarchy supporter, there are few who will believe him now. Thus, Dahal’s only hope is to seek the blessings of Beijing, even as he fears the upcoming local, provincial, and federal elections.

Poor start 

While Dahal is dangerously overcharged, Deuba seems to be criminally lethargic on the prime minister’s chair. He has been sluggish in seeking a joint investigation with India on the alleged murder by the Indian SSB border security force of Jaya Singh Dhami while crossing the border river Mahakali on a ‘tuin’.  

Even though Deuba has gone on to do much harm, the magnanimity of Kathmandu’s intelligentsia towards him continues, perhaps because he is backed by Dahal. Meanwhile, Nepal has disappointed neighbors and well-wishers—including India, China, and the USA—and a populace amused by spectacles like budget holiday and an aging prime minister shouldering more than a dozen ministries for more than two months. And even as Nepal faces great power rivalry for the first time in decades, between Beijing and Washington DC, and as the Beijing-New Delhi relationship becomes chilly following the Ladakh skirmish, the nation lacks a steady hand.

Democracy is what we chose as a nation. We invested heavily, in terms of time, money, as well as emotion (as when India blockaded Nepal) on the Constitution that we have. The aberrations that we are faced with can be addressed within the frameworks it provides through a couple of elections until the frameworks get concretized.

Deuba could deliver some stability for the country at large, and do good for his Nepali Congress party, if he were to dramatically dump the ridiculous ‘gathabandhan’ government and call general elections. Chances are, though, that he will simply do as told by his own coterie and by Dahal. In which case, sovereign Nepalis will remember Deuba 5.0 as the most forgettable blip among his forgettable terms as prime minister.

Bikash Sangraula is a Kathmandu-based journalist and author. @SangraulaBikash

Till then, Oli was in parliamentary majority because his ally-turned-foe Pushpa Kamal Dahal had not mustered the guts to withdraw the Maoist-Center’s support to the government in the full two months since the Supreme Court reinstated the Lower House on February 23.

In over two years of political turmoil crafted by Dahal, he had sought to oust Oli through extra-parliamentary process, using his clout over the mainstream media to present him in great light while lampooning the prime minister at every turn. Indeed, one reason Dahal was so vehemently against the elections called by Oli was that, as widely believed, his Maoist party would be reduced to a peripheral political force.

When the time finally came to stand up and be counted after the Supreme Court reinstated Parliament, it is noteworthy that Dahal was unwilling to bring a no-confidence motion. Firstly, he was not sure he had the numbers including from the Nepali Congress and JSP, and secondly, Oli could not be challenged for a full year if the attempt failed. And so Dahal spent weeks trying to convince Sher Bahadur Deuba and the Madhesi leaders, to no avail.

It has also become clearer why Dahal was so vehemently opposed to elections: it is that his Maoist would in all likelihood be reduced to a token at the polls. Indeed, one can be magnanimous and empathize with Dahal for the reality that seems to stare him in the face.

As for Prime Minister Oli, after having waited two months for the opposition to bring a no confidence motion, he has decided to stand the test of Parliament of his own volition. Finally, on May 4, the Maoist Center decided to withdraw its support to Oli. It would have been embarrassing not to do so as Parliament sits to meet.

Also on May 4 came a decision by the Nepali Congress party that it would not vote in favor of Oli on May 10. A commitment to unseat him, however, was tellingly absent in the decision.

If past jubilations serve any precedent, Oli’s opponents in the media and in the political spectrum should have welcomed his decision to convene a special session of Parliament on May 10 to seek a fresh vote of confidence. After all, in our democracy, Parliament is the right place for a prime minister to test his legitimacy. That a handful of fortune-seeking commentators cannot stand a prime minister is hardly an issue in any democracy.

If a government change is to happen, it better be swift. If not, this political distraction must stop. The nation cannot afford it amid a rampaging pandemic. 

After deciding on December 20 last year to stand the test of the ballot, which was blocked by the Supreme Court, this is the second time Oli has sought to silence his critics by putting himself on the crucible. Instead of appreciation, however, the said commentators have gone into overdrive peddling conspiracy theories on what is going on.

Rather than be open to the idea of a confidence vote, the commentators’ fear of Oli remaining on the prime minister’s chair has them imagining many scenarios. One of them is to darkly suggest that India has been instrumental in keeping NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba from going in for a no-confidence vote against Oli. This theory disregards the many reasons internal and external to his own party, as to why Deuba would rather have quick elections, to overturn the debacle of his party (under his leadership) in the 2017 general elections.

The deification of Oli

Another conspiracy theory making rounds is that Oli decided to take the test because he is somehow capable of controlling the outcome of the parliamentary test. In this, the prime minister’s opponents can be said to be deifying Oli, believing him to be omnipotent, a kind of seer who has future events completely within his grip.

In parallel, the theory that there is a ‘setting’ between the top executive and high judiciary, which was shot down by the Supreme Court’s February 23 verdict, is once again rearing its head. This theory suggests that the temporary suspension of judicial service delivery, except for habeas corpus and Covid-19 related petitions, is part of a plan to have the judiciary look the other way while Oli carries out unconstitutional moves.

The incongruence does not seem to bother the loud commentators, who insist on suspecting the very person of autocratic ambitions who has approached Parliament for a confidence vote. A kind of panic and paranoia does seem to afflict Oli’s opponents, who fear him, hate him, while at the same time ascribe to him supernatural abilities.

Time to be decisive

The ground reality is that the outcome of May 10 remains quite uncertain. The Prime Minister seems to have taken a gamble, going by whatever permutations are thrown up in the game of numbers, and he is surely not in a position to calibrate and command the outcome.

There is enough time still for Dahal, his UML ally Madhav Kumar Nepal, Deuba, and Janata Samajwadi Party’s Upendra Yadav-BaburamBahttarai faction to come together to try and unseat Oli. In a country where things go topsy turvy overnight, these political players will obviously leave no stone unturned in the days ahead to try and deliver a drubbing to Oli. This would not only bring Oli down. It would erase the embarrassment of not being able to bring a no-confidence motion after the reinstatement of Parliament.

The ground reality is that the outcome of May 10 remains quite uncertain. The Prime Minister seems to have taken a gamble, going by whatever permutations are thrown up in the game of numbers, and he is surely not in a position to calibrate and command the outcome.

If these political parties fail to grab this opportunity, the ruckus they created on the streets in the past four months, contributing their bit to help the ongoing Covid-19 explosion in Kathmandu, will prove to be nothing more than irresponsible political brinkmanship in pandemic times.

That Oli, in response, himself held counter-rallies in front of the Narayanhiti and elsewhere cannot be forgotten, neither can we forgive and forget civil society events, religious jatras, and five-star weddings—not to mention the attendance of the former King and others in the Kumbha Mela in Haridwar. 

As containing the spread of Covid-19 is and should remain the nation’s top priority now and in the coming months and perhaps years, it really does not matter to a commoner who lords it over Singha Durbar as long as that person takes clear policy positions to counter the pandemic. The need of the hour is to get vaccine supplies and support the population through oxygen supplies and isolation centers.

Prognosis

The aforementioned political parties, if they have any self-respect left and if they meant what they said when they took to the streets after December 20, have a golden opportunity to take the nation from Oli’s alleged ‘pratigaman’ to ‘agragaman’ or progress. One would wish them success, in using the legitimate path of parliamentary arithmetic to unseat the sitting prime minister.

If the ambitions of Dahal and his cohorts fail in bringing Oli down, May 10 will offer him an opportunity to concede that he is a national liability. He should then allow Oli to steer the country out of this pandemic in the next one-and-a-half years of his current term.

These are the two possible outcomes. If a government change is to happen, let it happen swiftly. If not, this political distraction must stop. The nation cannot afford it amid the rampaging pandemic.

@SangraulaBikash

As far as they were concerned, the war against a ‘tyrant’, who just by coincidence is also the nation’s democratically elected prime minister and who still commands a majority in the House, had won. And so, the two supremos of the anti-Oli force fed each other laddoos in Chitwan while bottles of expensive single malt whiskey that have suddenly become quite affordable to some were emptied at ‘victory’ gatherings at private residences in Kathmandu. These were the same people who had for over two months, until that verdict, staged sponsored political and ‘civil society’ pantomimes on some of the streets and public venues in Kathmandu, and on complicit media platforms—among other things questioning the independence of the justices to give a fair verdict. As should never be forgotten, one senior-most civil stalwart even threatened the judges of a public lynching if they took decisions supporting Oli’s move. With the verdict, it seemed that all was forgiven and that the suspicions had never been entertained.

You will not find the political analysts having a second think, that perhaps Oli’s prescription of snap elections in April-May was the only democratic and parliamentary recourse, given that the numbers held by the three main parties (four after the subsequent Supreme Court decision) in Parliament just would not provide a stable government for the remaining two years of the parliamentary term. The Prime Minister is now in the ‘I-told-you-so’ position, given that those who had clamored for reinstatement of the Lower House were not able to, or did not want to, bring a no-confidence motion against him in the full two months before the House was prorogued on Monday. The political prescription of mid-term elections is now seen as an empirical necessity by the leaders of the main opposition Nepali Congress as well as the Janata Samajwadi Party, the third on the totem pole.

It is clear that the NC and JSP will do well if general elections were to be held, and the earlier the better. They would eat into the partial vacuum created by the chaos within the Nepal Communist Party, now broken up into the UML and MC. However, the internal dynamics within these two parties is keeping them from being very vocal about this—the opposition to Sher Bahadur Deuba within the NC would prefer party General Convention to unseat him rather than a general election that yields success to the party as a whole. Within the JSP, the Baburam Bhattarai and Upendra Yadav duo seeks to block the inclination of Mahanta Thakur and Rajendra Mahato for polls that would see their numbers rise in the new Parliament.

Alone against the electoral prescription is the Maoist Centre, which lacks the confidence to face the ballot given that it is seen by the public as merely a vehicle for its chairman, Pushpa Kamal Dahal (‘Prachanda’). Dahal himself is personally wary of the polls because he can expect the party to win only in pockets in Rukum/Rolpa, and his own prospects are uncertain. It is known that in the first elections he won through electoral fraud and complicity of the Election Commission, and his second win was due to blackmail (there is a tape of him exhorting his Kirtipur constituency followers to use all measures from force to bribery to achieve victory).

What has happened and what we are seeing since the House was reinstated in February indicate that Oli’s intentions need not be questioned to the extent they were. It was certainly not pratigaman. It is thus time to either clean up the House though prevailing parliamentary process or go for early elections and fresh mandate.

While the mainstream media and particularly the broadsheets paint a picture of Dahal as a leader who holds the reins firmly, his own persona shows a level of panic as power and credibility slips from his grasp. And for this Dahal has only himself to blame—see for example how he worked to make his Maoist lieutenant Agni Sapkota the Speaker of the Lower House, and thereafter has been using him to sabotage the Government’s parliamentary agenda. It was Pushpa Kamal Dahal, insecure because of his past crimes and present pelf, who initiated and still fuels attacks on, and triggers tussles between, institutions of the young republic that just over three years ago got its first elected government under the new Constitution, which was written and overwhelmingly endorsed by people’s representatives just over five years ago.  When commentators point out the ongoing derailment of the parliamentary process, they fail to point out Dahal as the fount and trigger, to which the Prime Minister and others are forced to react as best as they can.

Events that have unfolded since the February 23 verdict have offered no evidence whatsoever that Oli’s decision to go for snap elections can be called ‘regression’. If anything, the regression was the attempt by the NCP stalwarts, through their moribund Secretariat, to control the Government, as if Nepal was a Stalinist state where a head-of-government is answerable to his party rather than to the legislature.

No victors

In the two months after that verdict, citizens have repeatedly heard from the anti-Oli clique that a new dispensation aimed at stopping Oli’s ‘tyrannical’ ambitions is imminent. In lack of both political foresight and the parliamentary strength to unseat Oli, the strategy of positing Oli as the nation’s chief enemy did not result in the groundswell of popular support the clique had hoped for. The public knew all too well to disregard the preparatory work done by the broadsheets on behalf of the Dahal agenda.

This clique, led by Dahal and aided by his UML proxy Madhav Kumar Nepal, can now be seen portraying these two as victims ‘rightfully’ fixated on revenge which was recently orchestrated in Karnali Province where four provincial lawmakers who represented UML crossed the floor.

Given the rug was pulled from beneath their feet by the Supreme Court decision that de-recognized the NCP, the two former prime ministers, who could not credibly blame the Court after having applauded it only two weeks earlier, are busy playing the victim card. That three former prime ministers arrayed against Oli (Dahal, Nepal and Jhalanath Khanal) can play the victim, and that the media will portray them as such even though the public barely buys it, can perhaps be tolerated only in South Asia’s most tolerant and liberal country, which Nepal is.

And quite incredible it is to note that Dahal is still carried by commentators and opinion-makers as the protector of democracy. As in the past, Dahal is given to suit his statement to his audience, but the impact is not the same as before because his political power and treasure chest are both diminished. Madhav Kumar Nepal is reduced to find a way to survive, with Dahal as senior partner. And so, he broke parliamentary precedence by asking four members of his UML faction to cross the floor to vote to save the provincial Karnali government of Chief Minister Mahendra Bahadur Shahi of Maoist Centre.

Meanwhile, some among the clique’s amplifiers in the media and civil society are busy offering up explanations as to why Oli’s ouster has been delayed. While they would be quite happy that the Chinese worked to keep Dahal’s power intact, they suggest darkly that it is Indians who have a hand in Oli’s survival in Government, which of course does not give any credit to the rank-and-file of the UML, including those who are not diehard Oli followers. There is no irony evident among the opinion makers, when they see Dahal and Nepal begging Deuba or Thakur to run the Government. In the meantime, the larger public seems quite sure of its own viewpoint, which is the necessity of mid-term elections, and the dissonance between the commentators beloved of the mainstream media editors and the public at large is clear even on a hazy day.

In these precarious times, when the nation is being lashed by a pandemic and facing earth-shaking geopolitical shifts, a fake ‘four-point agreement’ said to have been signed by the prime minister and R&AW chief Samanta Goel was recently ‘leaked’ to a gullible portal. The editor of said portal got away with a simple removal of the fake news, yet the episode does point to the need for the public to be on guard against prejudiced media. The same alertness is required as some miscreants seek to tribalize Nepal in the name of identity politics, something that was summarily rejected by Nepali voters in the second Constituent Assembly elections when the Maoists were demoted from the largest political party to a distant third.

A hijacked parliament  

Speaker Agni Sapkota, a murder-accused and a Dahal loyalist, held the reinstated Parliament hostage from Day 1 when he prevented the tabling of ordinances, among which was one seeking to significantly increase the penalty for acid attacks, a violence that leaves life-long scars. Ever since, Parliament was largely reduced to a place where silence was observed for deceased lawmakers.

The very important US $500 million Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) grant gathers dust because Speaker Sapkota refuses to table the agreement for discussion and vote. Incidentally, the MCC agreement was signed after lengthy negotiations to ensure transparency and on-time work in transmission lines construction during the Nepali Congress-Maoist Centre government. Today, for no other reason than following the dictates of Dahal to make governance difficult for Oli, Sapkota sabotages the MCC project.

Thanks to Sapkota’s complicity, Dahal is free to create as many hurdles as is possible in Parliament. When civil society and even international NGOs critique the Oli Government for using adhyadesh for appointments to constitutional bodies, including the National Human Rights Commission, they do not pause to consider that this was required because Sapkota would not allow it to happen through regular bills in Parliament.

Sapkota has shown singular lack of initiative to kick-start elections of the Deputy Speaker—under whose Chairmanship, incidentally, he can be impeached for surrendering the sanctity of his office to the private services of his party boss. The very reason Sapkota can get away with so much chicanery is that he reports to the Maoist supremo Dahal, and so many media leaders seem to be taking dictation from the same source.

Election decision  

While the court’s February 23 verdict told the Prime Minister that he had overstepped on December 20, it did not untie, and could not have untied, political knots that had accumulated in more than three years since general elections were held.

It was immediately after the unification between the UML and Maoist-Center in 2018 that the groundwork to oust Oli was started, with many handlers in media given the task of ridiculing the excessively loquacious Oli. After gnawing at the government from the inside for two years, when the constitutional moratorium on a no-confidence vote expired, the intended political coup, which was not backed by necessary numbers in Parliament, was unfurled publicly in the form of a no-confidence vote registered hours after the House dissolution and given a forged timing by Speaker Sapkota.

This and other efforts before and thereafter to oust Oli were instigated by non-parliamentary ambitions of Dahal and Nepal. It was supported by editors and commentators who were either already in Dahal’s court, or were energized by their distaste for Oli, so deep that they would hand over the keys to the country to the Maoist chieftain. But, as it is becoming clear, a dislike for someone is not reason enough to get rid of him as head-of-Government if you do not have the numbers to oust him. The moment they can garner the required number of MPs to oust the Prime Minister, they should certainly be welcomed to do so. In the meantime, will the editors and reporters who have so breathlessly reported on the imminent departure of Oli over the past few months self-evaluate their motives and professionalism? One can leave that question hanging there.

As things stand in the new year 2078, and coming on the last week of April 2021, Oli faces a hostile Speaker on the one hand, and a Parliament that cannot cobble together a coalition to unseat him on the other, no matter how many stories appear on the media parroting the Dahal-Nepal claims about imminent government collapse.  It thus becomes clear that Prime Minister Oli’s decision of calling snap elections was right for two reasons: one, there was no trust among the various large parties which showed the need for a new mandate from the people; and, two, the appointment of Agni Sapkota as Speaker in January last year meant that there was no way this Parliament would be able to function, whether it was reinstated or not.

What has happened and what we are seeing since the House was reinstated in February indicate that Oli’s intentions need not be questioned to the extent they were. It was certainly not pratigaman. It is thus time to either clean up the House though prevailing parliamentary process or go for early elections and fresh mandate.

What is pratigaman?

Pratigaman isa term that came into popular use during the coup of 2005 by King Gyanendra, when he jailed leaders and civil society activists, leading to a groundswell of public resistance that got termed the Second People’s Movement. Today, lazy analysts have taken to use ‘regression’ as an easy tag for the actions of anyone one dislikes. In the latest instance, ‘pratigaman’ was weaponized against KP Oli. While the weapon did not work, its manufacturers and distributors should be required to answer certain questions.

Isn’t returning to the pre-2018 era of revolving-door coalition governments, during which people made careers, pratigaman? In the clear absence of an alternative to the incumbent prime minister, isn’t the publicly visible efforts aimed solely at incapacitating the government and ridiculing or defaming the prime minister pratigaman? Isn’t the portrayal of Dahal as victim, given that he is the leader and architect of an armed insurgency that caused the deaths of over 17,000 people and set the national economy back by two decades, pratigaman?

The civil society wallahs who have a fetish for Pushpa Kamal Dahal need to answer to the public, which clearly does not think along the same lines as they do.

Bikash Sangraula is a Kathmandu-based journalist and author.

@SangraulaBikash