The balance of power in the party seems to have shifted markedly against party Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal after two vice-chairmen—Mohan Biadya and Dr Babauram Bhattarai—and party General Secretary Ram Bahadur Thapa joined hands to force Dahal to offload some of his powers and privileges to them. The vice-chairmen duo now claims that it also has the support of the third vice-chairman, Narayan Kaji Shrestha. If this is true, it will leave party Chairman Dahal in an absolute minority in the party, and that could prove deeply humiliating for him. But it is too early to jump to conclusions since the Dahal faction still claims it has a majority in the central committee. Let us wait for a day or two to see who holds the majority.
How this crisis ends will shape the future course of the Maoist party as well as the future direction of Nepali politics. Though Bhattarai and Baidya have joined hands to clip the wings of their chairman, they hardly see eye to eye when it comes to the party’s political line. Baidya has all along believed that the peace process is a farce and there is no alternative to launching a “genuine revolution” that will snatch power from the elites and hand it over to the proletariat. But Bhattarai is the staunchest advocate of concluding the peace process and writing the constitution in time. His public position is that failure to conclude the peace process and write the constitution in the next four and half months will push the country into disaster. If Baidya and Bhattarai succeed in forcing the party chairman to compromise, how will that impact the party’s future political line?
This internal power struggle will have ramifications for the country. The peace process and constitution writing remain virtually stalled because of the Maoists. The other two large parties—Nepali Congress and UML— more or less have a clear idea how they want to conclude the peace process and what kind of constitution to promulgate. This is not to suggest that they already have a blue print for peace process and constitution but they by and large share the values of liberal democracy when it comes to the constitution and also agree on a lot of things about the peace process. It is the Maoists who have to make a hard choice —and this time once and for all— whether or not they want to conclude the peace process and become fully committed to peaceful politics, whether or not they want to write a democratic, progressive constitution. The current power struggle in the Maoist party could prevent it from reaching a decision. That will be unfortunate for the party and for this country.
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