TIME LINE

• Born in Biratnagar in 1925
• 1948: Koirala founds the Nepal Mazdoor Congress, which later became the Nepal Trade Union Congress
• 1952: Koirala becomes the President of the Morang district Nepali Congress
• 1960: Imprisoned by King Mahendra following the 1960 royal coup
• 1967: Released from jail, is exiled to India along with other leaders and workers of the party
• 1979: Returns to Nepal
• 1975-1991: General Secretary of the Nepali Congress Party
• 1990: Actively takes part in the Jana Andolan which results in establishment of multi-party democracy
• 1991: NC wins 112 of the 205 seats in multi-party elections. GPK becomes the leader of the NC parliamentary party and is sworn in as Prime Minister
• 1994: With divisions in the party and defection of 36 members sympathetic to K P Bhattarai, Koirala loses vote. Koirala resigns. King Birendra dissolves parliament
• November 15, 1994: CPN-UML wins most seats in the House of Representatives and Man Mohan Adhikari becomes the prime minister of a minority government
• Koirala engineers the fall of Surya Bahadur Thapa. Heads NC minority government
• December 25, 1998: Koirala heads a three-party coalition government with the CPN-UML and NSP
• May 3 and May 17, 1999: General Elections held. NC wins again after deep divisions within UML. Heavy defeat of leftist parties
• 2000: Koirala becomes Prime Minister for the third time after forcing KP Bhattarai to resign. It is the ninth government in 10 years
• June 1, 2001: King Birendra and other royal family members massacred
• June 4, 2001: Prince Gyanendra becomes King
• July 2001: Maoists step up war. Koirala quits after being unable to mobilize the army. Deuba succeeds
• 2001 November: Maoists end four-month old truce with government, declare peace talks with government failed. Launch coordinated attacks on army and police posts
• Novermber 22, 2005: 12-point agreement signed in New Delhi
• 2006 April 24: King Gyanendra agrees to reinstate parliament following weeks of violent strikes and protests against direct royal rule. GP Koirala is appointed prime minister. Maoists call a three-month ceasefire
• 2006 May: Parliament votes unanimously to curtail the king’s political powers. The government and Maoist rebels begin peace talks
• 2006 May 2: Koirala announces new cabinet including himself and three other ministers from the Nepali Congress
• 2006, June 16: Rebel leader Prachanda and PM Koirala hold talks - the first such meeting between the two sides - and agree that the Maoists should be brought into an interim government
• 2006 November: The government and Maoists sign a peace accord, declaring a formal end to a 10-year insurgency. The rebels are to join a transitional government and their weapons placed under UN supervision
• 2007 January: Maoist leaders enter parliament under the terms of a temporary constitution. Violent ethnic protests erupt in the south-east; demonstrators demand autonomy for the region
• 2007 April 1: Koirala re-elected as Prime Minister to head a new government composed of the SPA and the CPN (Maoist)
• 2007 December: Parliament approves abolition of monarchy as part of peace deal with Maoists, who agree to re-join government
• 2008, May 28: Nepal becomes a republic
• 2008, July 21: Two months after the departure of King Gyanendra, Ram Baran Yadav becomes Nepal’s first president
• 2009, May 4: Caught in row over dismissal of Nepal’s army chief, country’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, resigns Terms as Prime Minister
• 25 April 2006 - 18 August 2008
• 22 March 2000 - 26 July 2001
• 15 April 1998 - 31 May 1999
• 26 May 1991 - 30 November 1994

THT OPINION

KATHMANDU: If there was ever a modern politician in Nepal who epitomised classical notions of a politician, it was Girija Prasad Koirala.
In his lecture, Politics as Vocation, political theorist Max Weber said a true politician is motivated by an inner calling and is able to unite the ethic of responsibility with an ethic of ultimate ends. “Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he shall not crumble when the world from his point of view is too stupid or too base for what he wants to offer,” Weber said. “Only he who in the face of all this can say ‘In spite of all!’ has the calling for politics.” It was Koirala, who was able to take bold decisions and push them through. Without his consent the 2005 12-point deal with the Maoists would have been impossible, nor would Nepal have become a republic.
He also embodied the political maxim that without power, a politician is but dead. He revealed this mantra to his close friends, and it was his devotion to this principle, and not his insensitivity, that drove him to hold on to power and weaken competition.
During and after the 1990 movement, he emerged from the shadows of Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and Ganesh Man Singh to take control of the party. His no nonsense politics, left little room for Singh and Bhattarai in the party. His move was to have deep repercussions throughout the rest of his career, and he never really got a second chance to put things right after the NC’s defeat in the 1994 parliamentary elections.
He had a deep devotion to Nepal’s development, and the euphoria was apparent during his first stint as Prime Minister from 1991 to 1994 . Unfortunately his determination was limited by a shortage of financial resources, the shortsighted oppositional politics practiced by the UML and the internal differences within the NC. His resignation as PM in July 2001, when he was unable to mobilise the Nepali Army against growing Maoist onslaught, became a measure of his limitations, and a test of existing power balance in the Nepali society.
Yet, he was perhaps the only politician in Nepal who could yield authority and respect without the backing of the state machinery, and it was with this devotion to political power, completion of the peace process and stabilisation of democracy that he lived until his last day.