After returning home, shaking PM Modi’s hand in India, Mr. Uthal-Puthal (20 March, Republica) seems to be on a kind of steroid. He is now claiming for a full five-year tenure, ignoring the fact that a distant third runner is running the show, sidelining first and second position holders. Reason: he got the magic number, probably, a magic wand to perform chhu mantar. Let us first take a dig on this magic number.
The Magic Number
Currently, the hung parliament, with a total of 275 seats, has following seat distribution (in approximate percentage terms): 32% NC, 29% UML, 12% MC and 8% RSP, 5% RPP, 4% CPN-US, 3% JSP, 2% Janamat Party, 2% JSP-Nepal, 1% NUP and 1% LSP. Remaining 1% is with three smaller parties and two independent candidates.
Saving a possible alliance between NC and UML, no two parties can secure a 50+ majority. Therefore, any party can expect to have a magic number as long as it can muster a 50+ majority.
What’s wrong with Prachanda?
In fact, in a coalition government, the power of the magic number rests with the party at the margin. This is similar to the concept of marginal cost pricing in economics. The price of a product is determined by the marginal value or additional contribution made by that product.
If this had not been the case, Mr. Madhav Kumar Nepal, the president of CPN-US, holding a mere 4% strength, will not be aspiring the chair of PM. Comrade Prachanda, with a 12% voting power, is currently ruling the roost simply because there is extreme rivalry between the NC and UML and between NC and RSP. He is also taking advantage of the rivalry between CPN-UML and CPN-US. If he had a magic number, he will never be wooing the support of smaller political parties or conspiring to split smaller political parties.
The conclusion is that comrade Prachanda holding a magic number is not only misinformed, it is also flawed. He may be imagining his indispensability or invincibility that, without MC, there can be no government formation.
Security-insecurity paradox
If MC is not having a magic number, where is this, out of the blue, over-confidence coming from? Part of the answer lies in his security-insecurity paradox, that is, rationalization of security in a situation of extreme insecurity. Having been forced to face three parliamentary tests, within 15 months, with substantial erosion of confidence, obviously, Comrade Prachanda is facing a situation of extreme insecurity. And this is where he needs to assure his comrades. Recently, CPN-UML is expressing displeasure over his meeting with newly elected PM Modi and some UML members are openly calling for border closure. This is nothing more than a media stunt. The party is also critical of annual programs and budget. His other partner, DPM as well as Home Minister, Mr Ravi Lamichhane is, literally, in a state of squeeze after being grilled from two ends - one, pending court case related to Attorney General issuing clean chit in his favour and two, the parliamentary investigation committee digging into cooperative scandals. Clearly, time buying tactics are underway, but sooner or later, Damocles Sword will fall on the head of Comrade Prachanda, if not on Mr. Lamichhane.
How he has been made to feel insecure can be inferred by a single incident: The day he appoints an ambassador to a designated country, the very next day, his appointment is rebuked and rejected, that too in public. What could be a more shameful activity than this? And his other coalition partner is making an open vacancy call for appointing ambassadors - akin to former king Gyanendra making an open vacancy call for the prime ministership. Public took it as a big joke on democratic system. In the name of transparency, it is absurd to take off one’s undergarments.
Comrade Prachanda is not only claiming to hold the magic number, he is also claiming that no one can topple his government. The statement is more towards rationalizing his insecurity feelings rather than a substantiating fact. The successive court verdicts have indicated that, as long as there is a possibility of forming an alternative government, no PM, how powerful he or she may be, cannot dissolve the parliament and call for mid-term polls. Comrade Prachanda may be misreading this statement as himself to be the alternative or there is no TINA (read, there is no alternative) situation.
Weakest and meekest PM
Either by design or default, history has turned a person with a revolutionary character background into as the weakest and meekest prime minister of the country. His huti-huti (desire) to do something for the country has been reduced to a farcical exercise on governance and public service delivery. He has publicly declared presenting himself nirmam (bold) with anti-corruption measures but his own Chief Secretary is, now, suspended for corruption charges. That is another big joke. So far, with mere 12% holdings, he has managed to keep himself afloat, carefully playing one ball (NC) against the other (UML). But there is an American saying: you can fool some people all of the time, all people some of the time, but you cannot fool all people all of the time. Comrade Prachanda does not hold a magic number, albeit, he is successful in playing the role of a magician, like in a circus surrounded by clowns, giving bursts of laughter, now and then, to the entertainment of the spectators.
