A government’s first 100 days in office is considered a honeymoon period. The thinking is that this is the minimum time a new government needs to get its bearings. The government of KP Sharma Oli had no such luxury. When he assumed government leadership on October 11th the Tarai-Madhesh had been burning over two months; the Indian blockade was in its third week; and the country was still struggling to come to terms with the devastating earthquakes earlier in the year. Republica had supported Oli’s candidacy for the new prime minster, to replace Sushil Koirala. Since there had been a gentlemen’s agreement between Nepali Congress and CPN-UML—which allowed Koirala to become the prime minister after the second Constituent Assembly elections—that the government reins would be handed to UML after the promulgation of new constitution, it was only right Congress stuck to its side of the bargain. But there was one more important reason why we backed Oli as prime minister. The UML chair had made a name for himself as a decisive leader, someone not afraid to make bold decisions and stick by them come what may. If used wisely, such decisiveness, we believed, would come handy in talks with the agitating Madheshi forces.
But what we got to witness during Oli’s first 100 days in office has been bitterly disappointing. There has been no headway in talks with the Madheshi parties. This, in part, is due to the prime minister’s old tendency to rub Madheshi leaders the wrong way. He has of late done nothing to regain their confidence. But even if we give the prime minister the benefit of doubt on this—after all, the Madheshi parties have also been rather obdurate—other vital areas of governance also leave much to be desired. A strong-minded leader like Oli should not have found it hard to assert his authority as the prime minister and used the same to shape a lean, work-oriented cabinet. Instead, at 40-strong, Oli has one of the flabbiest cabinets in the history of democratic Nepal. It crucially violates the provision in the new constitution that the size of the cabinet should be under 25. Existing ministries were inexplicably broken up to create new portfolios for his nine coalition partners. The Oli government, likewise, has failed to make any headway in repairing ties with India, or, alternately, to work out new mutually-beneficial trade deals with China.
But the biggest failure of Oli government’s 100 days in office has to be its tardiness in bringing timely help to around 600,000 earthquake victims who have been living in ramshackle makeshift shelters for the past eight months. The much-talked about National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has also had an inauspicious start after it came to light that the government has on the sly delegated vital parts of reconstruction to an NGO. Even the works that could easily be done by available manpower in government at no extra cost have been parceled out, supposedly to the NGOs with which the UML party has traditionally had cozy relations. Corruption in public bodies is rising; the time-honored brand of old-boys-network politics is stronger than ever; inflation, already in doubt digits, could soon spiral out of control. In fact, it’s hard to think of a single notable achievement of Oli government. Could its next 100 days be any better? We aren’t biting our nails.
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