Nepal power struggle in stalemate stage

Nepal’s politics is back at square one after King Gyanendra’s failure to negotiate peace with Maoist rebels and hold elections through “constructive monarchy.” The royal experiment provoked a massive urban anti-monarchy movement led by an alliance of five parties, while the rural-based Maoist rebellion continued to grow apace.

The king took charge of the government by sacking Sher Bahadur Deuba as prime minister on Oct. 4, 2002, calling him incompetent to hold parliamentary elections within six months as required by the constitution.

After 20 months of unsuccessful experiments with two hand-picked prime ministers — Lokendra Bahadur Chand and Surya Bahadur Thapa — Gyanendra reappointed Mr. Deuba as prime minister on June 2, apparently seeking to cool off street protests and avert a graver political crisis.

Mr. Deuba heads a breakaway faction of Nepal’s oldest party, the Nepali Congress (NC), which carries the same name plus Democratic in parenthesis.

The NC (Democratic) party had sought the reinstatement of Mr. Deuba’s government, while the five-party alliance agitated against the king’s intervention and demanded restoration of the dissolved house of representatives and formation of an all-party government.

Many analysts agree Gyanendra was running out of options in May amid the urban protests and the Maoist war in the countryside. Early that month, he told Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa to resign, and asked the political parties to recommend a person with “a clean image” who could form a coalition government and hold parliamentary elections in April next year.

For three weeks, the five parties, particularly the Nepali Congress (NC) and Unified Marxist and Leninist (UML), jockeyed for the position of prime minister and failed to come up with a consensus candidate. So the king picked Mr. Deuba on June 2 and instructed him to form a coalition government, establish peace and organize parliamentary elections for April 2005.

Mr. Deuba’s reappointment as prime minister underlined the king’s predicament, and critics questioned Gyanendra’s own competence in bringing back the person he fired as “incompetent” 20 months earlier.

Analysts, however, say the king gained some breathing space in the short term by the reappointment. First, the monarch avoided having to reinstate the dissolved parliament, which would have restrained his own activism. Second, the street protests died down following the withdrawal of the UML party from the five-party alliance. Third, the political parties lost their former unity, reducing their ability to cause trouble for the monarchy.

In the emerging equation of urban-based Nepali politics, there are four parties — the NC (Democratic), the UML, the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), and the Nepal Sadvavana Party (NSP-Mandal faction) — supporting Mr. Deuba, and an equal number of parties — the NC, Samyukta Jana Morcha (SJM), Nepal Workers’ and Peasants’ Party (NWPP), and Nepal Sadvavana Party (NSP-Aanandi Devi faction) opposing him.

The four-party coalition led by Mr. Deuba has signed a 43-point Common Minimum Point (CMP) document as the basis of the political contract of the coalition government. Highlights of the CMP include a seven-point agenda to consolidate national interests and democracy, maximum flexibility in resolving Maoist insurgency through national consensus, maintenance of law and order to guarantee peace and security, seven measures to provide immediate relief to victims of insurgency, six measures to improve political institutions, a six-point economic agenda to uplift the country’s economy, and 15-point social agenda to uplift poor and downtrodden communities.

Mr. Deuba, after more than a month of dickering over ministerial berths with his coalition partners — the UML, RPP, and NSP (Mandal faction) — expanded his three-member Cabinet to 31 members on Monday with 12 members from his own party NC (D), 11 from the UML, five from the RPP, one from NSP (Mandal faction), and two from the Civic Society, who are, in fact, royal nominees.

Analysts say there is so many disagreements among the four coalition partners over what should be a smooth political road map for Nepal’s peace and development that they are certain to be fighting among themselves.

In Nepal’s political spectrum, Mr. Deuba’s NC (D) is right of center, the UML is left of center, the RPP represents right-wing monarchists, and the NSP (Mandal faction) is the ethnic-sectarian right wing.

The four-party alliance opposing the coalition government, led by NC leader Girija Prasad Koirala — comprising Samyukta Jana Morcha (SJM), the Nepal Workers’ and Peasants’ Party (NWPP), and the Nepal Sadvavana Party (NSP-Aanandi Devi faction) — sees the present government as a continuation of “regression” and has already announced that it will continue its protests. The alliance has declared a 45-day hunger strike, to be carried out by relays of hunger strikers nationwide, as a continuation of its anti-regression protests.

Story Continues →