The latent dispute in CPN-UML is once again threatening to boil over as the party gears up for its General Convention in a year’s time. With preparations for the 2014 event in full swing at VDC and district levels, the KP Oli faction is upping the ante against Chairman Jhalanath Khanal faction. The two factions that were bitterly divided during the last General Convention in Butwal in 2009 have never made amends, although the party had tried to gloss over the entrenched differences, with mixed success.
As top leaders jockey to strengthen their positions ahead of 2014, the war of words has started again. The reason for the festering dispute is mostly personal. Ever since his defeat in the 2009 chairman race, Oli has never accepted Khanal as the undisputed leader. The grudges from Butwal continue to simmer, even though Khanal is not expected to contest for party leadership again. Curiously, senior leader Madhav Nepal who had been close to Oli after Butwal, seems to have shifted his allegiance to Khanal of late. If Khanal does not run again, Nepal is expected to contest for chairmanship from the establishment faction. [break]
It is inconceivable that UML leaders are unaware of the deleterious impact of this dispute on the CA election. Alternately, they are far from convinced about the prospect of November 19 vote, and hence the ferocity of recent intra-party dustups. Either way, these are disturbing signs for a party that likes to boast of its internal democracy. Indeed, of all the major parties, CPN-UML has perhaps the most democratic method of selecting top office bearers, with almost all important posts filled through election. This was the reason the 2006 UML Butwal convention was hailed as a resounding success in internal democracy, something for other political parties to emulate. But the continuing tug-of-war between the two factions has greatly undercut that exalted image, showing that even the most democratic structures are worthless unless political leaders honor them.
But this is not the problem in UML alone. Nepali Congress continues to be a divided house, more than three years after its 2010 General Convention. Since its reunification in 2007, the party has been struggling to reconcile the interests of the establishment faction under the Koirala family and the dissident faction led by Sher Bahadur Deuba.
The disputes here more or less mirror those in UML. It is easy for NC and UML, the vaunted torchbearers of democracy in Nepal, to chide UCPN (Maoist) for a sham exercise in democracy: the Maoist General Convention held after 23 years did nothing more than rubberstamp handpicked leadership. But unless the two can show that their ‘democratic models’ actually work, their claim to higher democratic ideals will ring hollow. The fact that Madhav Nepal (who has already held UML leadership for 15 years) and Oli (sick and fast-aging) will once again contest party leadership also negates any possibility of leadership change (and by extension party renewal), another perennial failing of Nepali political parties. It is unfortunate that our major parties are such divided houses, thwarting the possibility of healthy competition of ideas on the national stage.
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