What else does one need to legitimize his premiership? In that sense, he commands far better image than his predecessor, Madhav Kumar Nepal who had to face a barrage of popular sarcasm for being a henpecked man lacking democratic qualifications. However, going by Khanal’s meek conduct in the cabinet formation, we want to ask who the PM of Nepal is.
Normally we would expect a premier to act as the premier given the stiff race for it. Unfortunately, in the case of Jhalanath Khanal being in a premier´s position and acting like the premier evidently look like two different things. He is acting like an appendage to a prime minister rather than as the real prime minister. Right from the beginning of his tenure, he fumbled and mumbled in his decision-making ability. He appeared, to say the least, like a coward; and cowards, as the saying goes, die many deaths before their death. We can observe how he is succumbing to deathly miserable pressure from within and outside of his party. He signed the 7-point agreement with his Maoist mentor, Puspa Kamal Dahal but could neither carry it out nor defend it. He bungled on allocation of the Home portfolio uselessly because it was absolutely within his jurisdiction to decide who should be the Home Minister, Maoist or non-Maoist. His decision and declaration would have let the process of forming a government take its smooth course like it should have. Therefore, it is he, himself who is to be blame for a handicapped government, he is heading.
To make the matter worse, he has delegated the exclusive premier´s power to select the ministers from his party to a five-member committee comprising of those who wish him ill. With such friends and colleagues he does not need enemies. With chains all around his body fraught with do’s and do nots, he is bound to fail in deliverance of services people expect of him at this critical time of Nepal´s history. On the other hand, he has difficulty in getting a number of ministers from the Maoist party caught in wrangling over their choice. Of course, he can pass on the buck to Prachand in this respect. But it also reflects on his competence to form a government, let alone running a government.
His efforts to secure cooperation of Nepali Congress on the key issues of constitution formation and conclusion of peace process by initiating dialogues through KP Oli and Madhav Nepal can succeed only if a miracle occurs. But we know that miracles don´t happen every day.
With the appointment of Khanal as the premier on the support of the Maoist party, Nepali Congress leaders leveled a charge of political polarization between the communist parties on the one hand and the democratic parties on the other. In this new emerging context, they called for democratic unity among the non-communist parties of Nepal. In fact, PM Khanal and Prachand should have admitted to it, welcomed it and worked towards bringing all communist parties together. Instead both of them denied of having such a phenomenon emerging. Only later, did Dahal, as an after thought, wished all communist parties join hands to assert their majority not only in the parliament but also in the electorate.
Political polarization that all party leaders fear to emerge is what is actually needed in Nepal as the politics of consensus has not worked. People will have a clear choice to make between the leftist and rightist forces and give a chance to either of them to prove their mettle. Under the current dispensation, they have difficulty in distinguishing the communists from the democrats and the leftists from the rightists. Going by their words and deeds, neither are the democrats acting like democrats nor are the communists acting like communists. PM Khanal missed an opportunity, at least, to do a little good to the people by removing this confusion.
The formation of a government in Nepal need not normally be linked with any foreign country. But Dahal messed up Khanal´s appointment as premier as a setback to India. Now PM Khanal will have a hard time to prove, if he wishes to, that he is not anti-India, which, by going through his track records on Mahakali Treaty and other issues vis-à-vis India, is not. Sandwiched between Maoist anti-India tirade and India´s anti-Maoist stance, the Khanal government is bound to face insurmountable problems to sort out not only the bilateral relations but also internal problems of Nepal.
Khanal´s hopes of bringing the Madhes-based parties into his government so that he can control a two third majority in the Constituent Assembly to get a new constitution through, are already dashed by the Indian move to invite, advise and warn their leaders not to cooperate with the present government in Nepal. His efforts to secure cooperation of Nepali Congress on the key issues of constitution formation and conclusion of peace process by initiating dialogues through KP Oli and Madhav Nepal can succeed only if a miracle occurs. But we know that miracles don´t happen every day. However, failure of talks do, which almost seems to have found a permanent space in our press’ headlines. press.
Technically, the constitution writing is a process separate from the government functioning. But, in Nepal’s context it has managed to get mixed up, to an extent that all communist prime ministers since the 2008 polls, have tried to take credit from a potential new constitution, if and when it is made. On the contrary, two of them have been discredited on this count and the incumbent one is bound to follow their suit. Along with this the case of integration and rehabilitation of the ex-Maoist combatants, has been illogically linked with the constitution framing as well. Our leaders are very efficient to make simple issues complex; and, as a result, the main national agenda of the constitution writing and settlement of the combatants have become intractable. PM Jhalanath Khanal has shown no guts to resolve it till now. That does not mean he has no power to do so. He has legitimate authority but till now he has shown no interest to use it. We, therefore, have difficulty to identify who the real PM is.
Writer is associated with Nepal Studies and Research Center
adityaman@hotmail.com
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