The party´s plenum, which was convened with the objective of settling the power-sharing row, announced however that another similar gathering would be held after the CA election for the same purpose as the leaders couldn´t resolve matters at the plenum itself.[break]
Dahal last month floated his proposal to give full shape to the party´s central committee and the body of office bearers and form a politburo and a standing committee. But he couldn´t get his proposal endorsed from the central committee even though Baburam Bhattarai seemed to be happy with the proposal. Dahal found himself in further complications when Bhattarai quit the post of party vice-chairman.
After failing to persuade party rank and file over any of his options, Dahal proposed to centralize all the authority of party headquarters in the chairman alone and demote all office bearers´ to central committee members.
The dispute has now been deferred by vowing to settle it at the organizational national conference.
But if the UCPN (Maoist) party´s recent history is any indication, one can´t be so optimistic.
In 2010, the party leaders convened the Palungtar plenum with a view to settle intra-party controversies. But the plenum failed to resolve the disputes and the leaders entrusted the central committee with the responsibility of resolving matters.
Earlier this year, the party convened its general convention, after a gap of 22 years. The convention, which is taken as the party´s supreme authority, also failed to settle the power-sharing dispute and mandated the CC to give full shape to the CC and to the body of office bearers and form the politburo as well as the standing committee.
Several efforts by leaders and the CC yielded no result. Instead, the dispute widened and became so bitter that the chairman had to remove even those office bearers´ who were elected from the Hetauda convention, and demote them to CC members.
"Centralization of all authority in the chairman is just meant to defer the crisis for the time being. It is not a permanent solution," Ram Karki, CC member, told Republica. He argued that the UCPN (Maoist) party cannot be run without collective leadership. This kind of leadership becomes more necessary in order to compete in open politics.
"This problem reflects the common crisis faced overall by communist organizations in Nepal," he said.
What is the reason?
Why is the UCPN (Maoist) facing such a crisis? The main reason is that there is no criteria for awarding posts in the party. The leaders hand pick individuals for the posts. Another thing is that the posts are allocated in accordance with the factions of Chairman Dahal, Bhattarai and Narayan Kaji Shrestha and the sub-factions within those factions.
"All the crises are happening for lack of any criteria for choosing the leaders for various posts," added Karki.
According to CC member Bishwa Bhakta Dulal, the system will manage the crisis once the party becomes more developed.
"We failed to divide the posts among leaders for lack of a standard system," added Dulal. Karki said that the criteria and standards should be time spent in jail, involvement in movements and leadership capabilities.
If election is held
According to Dulal, the current ´treatment´ of the crisis will invite a huge crisis in the party at the time of the CA election. He clamed that crisis will overtake the party when it starts the distribution of candidacies.
"No one will accept the candidacies of the party leaders. We have not set any criteria for selection and have only established a practice of pleasing someone who can threaten the party leaders. Those who work hard and selflessly for the party are seldom rewarded," added Dulal.
"Such a practice has only created space for anarchy within the party."
Would the organizational national conference yield a solution?
It is said that the organizational national conference will set the criteria for choosing leaders for the posts and this will resolve the crisis.
Is there any possibility of finding a final solution? Or will it be another pretext for problem deferal?
"Anyhow, we should find the solution through the organizational national conference. If not, the party will be dissolved," claimed Karki. Maoist well-wishers can wish as much as they like but there is no possibility of the organizational national conference solving the problems either.
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