Rift in left alliance over unified party’s ideology

Kathmandu, February 15

A rift has surfaced between the CPN-UML and the CPN-Maoist Centre over political ideology of the unified party.

CPN-MC sources said when they were holding Party Unification Coordination Committee meeting yesterday, UML leaders told them that they would not give up People’s Multi-party Democracy, the official ideology of the party. According to sources, UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal said the unified party’s guiding principle should be PMPD.

The CPN-MC Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal then told the meeting that if they could not give up PMPD, the CPN-MC would also not give up Maoism.

These exchanges led to a tense situation in which the PUCC meeting, following which it was proposed that UML’s PMPD and CPN-MC’s Maoism and Democracy in the 21st Century should be debated till the next General Convention of the unified party and whatever line the GC adopted should be acceptable to party leaders and cadres. The next PUCC meeting was scheduled for today but could not be convened.

Instead Dahal met his party colleagues and briefed them on what had happened in the PUCC meeting yesterday. According to CPN-MC sources, the party could support the UML-led government from outside to keep the left alliance intact without joining the government in the first phase. The impact of yesterday’s rift between the two sides was apparent today when the newly-appointed PM asked Dahal to nominate two of his party lawmakers to the new Cabinet, but he refused to do so.

CPN-MC Spokesperson Pampha Bhusal said her party would not join the Oli-led government without sorting out issues relating to party unification and power sharing in the government. “Oli and Dahal may meet tomorrow or on Saturday,” she added.