NC & govt leadership

Nepali Congress (NC) has begun deliberating which of its leaders should become prime minister if the party gets a chance to lead the next government. The direction in which the party is headed is wrong for at least two reasons. First, the party should have concentrated on implementing the three-point agreement signed on May 28. Three weeks after that agreement, one of the main aims of which was to extend the Constituent Assembly term, it remains almost abandoned. For the first few days post-May 28, the parties shamelessly wasted time and energy blaming each other for violating the spirit of the agreement. Now it seems no one is interested in even remembering the agreement. That’s a tragedy because, among other things, it was perhaps the first deal in a year that gave some glimmer of hope to the people that the parties have finally buried their hatchets and will work together to conclude the peace process and write a constitution. That hope now remains shattered.



Nepali Congress should have initiated comprehensive talks with all the political parties, especially the Maoists, to revive that hope. The peace process and constitution writing are still the two major issues in the national agenda; therefore, the grand old party should have taken the initiative to fulfill that agenda. Unfortunately, the party seems to be gravitating more towards power, forgetting its sense of historical responsibility. It was Girija Prasad Koirala, the late NC president, who reached out to the Maoists while they were still at war and brought them into a peace process. The project for drawing the Maoists into peaceful politics and consolidating this youngest republic remains unfulfilled. The NC’s distraction over power will only make the project more uncertain. What the NC should have done is this: Reach out to the Maoists, offer them the carrot of leading a consensus government, and persuade them to make concessions to conclude the peace process and write a democratic constitution.



Second, even if the NC gets a chance to lead the next government, it’s not going to do the party any good. Instead, it’s likely such a chance will come as a kiss of death. Without taking the Maoists into confidence, a majority-based government led by the NC won’t be able to make any progress in the peace process and constitution writing. And why will the Maoists cooperate with a government whose leadership it feels legitimately belongs to them and has been unfairly snatched away by the NC? A chance for the NC to lead the government will also cause fissures within the party. There are already signs of this. A powerful section of the NC, led by party Acting President Sushil Koirala, thinks the party should not claim government leadership since it does not have a majority in parliament and there are more pressing matters, including the party’s revival. It also fears that unhealthy competition between aspirants — Sher Bahadur Deuba and Ram Chandra Poudel — to the prime minister’s post will further undermine party credibility in the public eye. We could not agree more.

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