NEPAL Kathmandu still seeking stability, KP Oli returns as prime minister

The leader of the Communist Party (unified Marxist-Leninist) has reached an agreement with the Nepalese Congress and created an alliance between the two main political parties in Parliament. Prachanda, head of a Maoist-inspired party, is thus stepping down as prime minister after less than 20 months. According to experts, the continuous alternation of governments prevents Nepal from establishing a direction for the country’s development.

Kathmandu (/Agencies) – Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli was sworn in this morning as Prime Minister of Nepal (a post he holds for the fourth time), after Parliament on Friday withdrew its confidence in his predecessor, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, ending a government that lasted just 18 months.

Oli, 72, is the leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) or UML, which has 78 seats in parliament. He struck a deal in late June with the centrist rival Nepali Congress (NC) party, which had come first in the last election in 2022 with 89 seats. In doing so, Oli — who has promised to share the premiership with NC president Sher Bahadur Deuba ahead of the next election due in 2027 — managed to form a new alliance between the two main parties before withdrawing his support for Dahal last week.

In 2015, during his first term, the pro-China KP Oli signed a trade deal with Beijing, ending what had hitherto been an Indian monopoly. After returning to power in 2018, the Communist Party-UML leader began to take an authoritarian stance, unifying some investigative and intelligence departments under the prime minister’s office, while limiting freedom of speech. He twice tried to dissolve the House, and was ousted from power by the Supreme Court.

Dahal, known by the nom de guerre Prachanda, 69, has also been prime minister three times and is the leader of the Maoist Communist Party after having fought in the civil war against the monarchy. He changed coalition partners three times during his last term and asked for confidence four times. Even with only 32 seats in parliament, the Maoist party had so far managed to maintain the top position in the government.

In fact, since Nepal abolished its monarchy in 2008, there have been 14 governments, and China and India have tried to influence the course of its policy. According to the commentators, However, Nepal’s political instability is due to several factors, mostly internal ones. Firstly, the ideological link between the two communist parties, one of Marxist-Leninist inspiration and the other of Maoist inspiration, is only one of convenience. Previous attempts to form some kind of alliance between the two (the last one was in 2019) have always failed, because both Oli and Prachanda do not accept sharing power.

In general, the prime minister-sharing schemes that have been proposed for government formation are difficult to adhere to. When the time comes to hand over the reins to the next politician, alliances are reshuffled and a different government is formed, but headed by the same prime minister. This is what Prachanda has done three times in the past year and a half.

But, as experts say, this practice not only weakens institutions and democracy, but also prevents the implementation of concrete solutions for the country’s development. For example, despite the fact that there are several UNESCO-protected sites, tourism has still not recovered since the Covid-19 pandemic because the only international airport does not have modern facilities and cannot cope with all the air traffic. In addition, in 2023 alone, around 1.6 million Nepalese (out of a population of 30 million) have left the country in search of work, often in the pay of foreign armies, such as the Russian one. But in the last two years, three foreign ministers have alternated, but they have not managed to draw up a coherent policy. That is why some Nepalese stranded abroad have recently asked India for help to be repatriated.

Several analysts Nepalese have expressed skepticism about Oli’s return to power, given that he has been unable to build stability even when he headed a majority government, and that until a few weeks ago he was still defending the legitimacy of the measures that had been taken, says Uddhab Pyakurel, a professor of political sociology at Kathmandu University. On the other hand, the Nepali Congress and the UML have always been ideological rivals. According to other views, however, both the government and the opposition could push for the new government to complete the term and for Oli to hand over the prime ministership to Sher Bahadur Deuba when the time comes. But it would be the first time that this has happened in Nepal’s recent history.