Editorial»
Point of departure
JUL 18 -
Ending months of speculations, Nepali Congress Central Working Committee on Saturday finalised the name of Ram Chandra Poudel as the party’s pick to lead the new government. What was remarkable about Poudel’s nomination was that it was senior leader Sher Bahadur Deuba, long considered Poudel’s biggest rival for the top job in the party, who proposed Poudel’s name. Rumour mills have it that Deuba decided to pull out of the race after reaching a deal with Poudel that the latter would back his bid for party presidency in the upcoming general convention.
Whatever the underlying reasons, top NC leaders closing ranks to come up with a consensus candidate marks a welcome change for NC, a party which has often struggled to put up a united face after NC’s merger with the Deuba-led Nepali Congress (Democratic) nearly three years ago. Deuba has struggled to cement his place in the united party. Deuba has been given no major responsibility within the party, the fact his supporters attribute for his growing disenchantment with old NC stalwarts from the mother party. Deuba’s latest concession could help the meeting of the minds between the two sides.
It also sends a strong signal to those who believed differences within NC were insurmountable. Their detractors, over the years, have had plenty of reasons to doubt NC’s unity. In 1991, the party came to government on the back of an absolute majority, but the squabbling triumvirate of Girija Prasad Koirala, Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and Ganesh Man Singh proved to be NC’s undoing. The Koirala-led government was toppled in 1994. Since then, NC has been riven by factionalism and dissent. Following Koirala’s death, the new ‘troika’ of Poudel, Deuba and Sushil Koirala have been jockeying for power, often at the party’s cost.
The consensus on Poudel’s candidature suggests that the oldest running political party is not as divided as it is sometimes taken to be. The move also sends a strong signal to the other two big parties, particularly UML, who have been struggling to speak with one voice.
UML is clearly a divided house. On Sunday, senior leader K P Oli was busy advising party Chairman Jhala Nath Khanal to pull out from the race to lead another UML-led majority government, a ‘pointless’ exercise in his view. The Khanal faction is pushing for his nomination even as the party is yet to make public its official stand on new majority government. Khanal’s bid for premiership, pushed without the institutional backing of his party, risks further polarising the party whose entrenched divisions were laid bare during last year’s general convention. UCPN (Maoist) has hinted that all options are on the table but seems to be dithering on announcing the final prime minister candidate.
NC’s firm stand helps clear the muddy political picture a bit. Poudel is now negotiating with other parties with the institutional backing of his party, a position of strength neither available to Khanal nor, at the moment, to any of the Maoist prime minister hopefuls.
Posted on: 2010-07-19 08:22
Headlines
Advertisements
