KATHMANDU, JANUARY 28
Prime Minister and CPN-Maoist Centre Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal's idea of electing the new president through consensus has raised hackles among CPN-UML leaders, who said that as per their agreement with Dahal, they should get the post of president.
Although the CPN-MC- Standing Committee, where Dahal broached this idea, has not formally decided, his talk of electing the president through consensus has raised hackles among UML leaders.
Recent statements from UML are indicative of the frustration with the main opposition party Nepali Congress, which they see as creating rift in the current seven-party alliance led by Dahal.
UML Chair KP Sharma Oli, who sensed the Nepali Congress' support to Dahal during vote of confidence could create fissures in the ruling alliance, had said in the House of Representatives when Dahal had sought confidence vote on January 10 that if the NC thought of throwing a net into a river with the hope of trapping fish, its attempt would go to waste.
He meant that the NC would not succeed in getting any constitutional post, but PM Dahal's idea of electing the new president through consensus signals a shift in Dahal's stance. If the PM sticks to this idea, chances of a candidate who is not the UML's choice getting elected to the post of president will be high.
Dahal has been saying that there are myriad problems, including the issue of the peace process, which can be resolved only through broader consensus and taking the NC on board could make that a reality.
Dahal may also have sensed the risk of economic crisis affecting Nepal. "We have seen economic crisis in Sri Lanka and now in Pakistan. Dahal rightly believes that national consensus is the way forward at this moment," said political analyst Chandrakishore.
Although Dahal became PM on the basis of the seven party alliance, the kind of support he received during the vote of confidence is enough to infer that he is not in a position to lose anything by talking about national consensus for electing the president even if it antagonises the UML.
CPN-MC leader Ram Narayan Bidari's public statement that if Dahal stuck to the current alliance, he would become the PM for two-and-ahalf years, but if he broke this alliance and joined another alliance with the NC, he could become PM for five years, confirms the sentiment in the CPN-MC that PM Dahal is in a most comfortable position.
Political analyst Uddhab Pyakurel said that Dahal had emphasised consensus for electing the president because he knew well the risk of concentrating major powers in the hands of one party.
"When Dahal, Madhav Kumar Nepal, and Narayan Kaji Shrestha were in Nepal Communist Party (NCP) they had seen how crucial the role of the president could be because lawmakers that Dahal and Nepal supported had gone to the President's Office to register a petition demanding special session of Parliament, but they could not meet the secretary there and could not file the petition," Pyakurel said, and added that Dahal felt that if both posts - speaker and president went to the UML, it would be difficult for him to run the government.
During the vote of confidence, NC had strongly raised the risk of dissolution of HoR by UML Chair KP Sharma Oli, who is supposed to become the PM after two-and-a-half years.
A CPN-MC leader told THT that at this stage Dahal had not decided on the kind of national consensus he was looking for, but he certainly was in two minds. "Dahal thinks that if on the one hand, he supports Oli's candidate for president, it will be difficult for him to run the government independently, and on the other, he thinks that if he aligns with the NC during presidential election, he will be seen as ditching coalition partners, particularly the UML.
A version of this article appears in the print on January 29, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
