The unification of the two communist parties on Monday, which was formally declared at a mass meeting in the capital on Tuesday, marks the fruition of their efforts to become one that had been initiated more seriously after Jana Andolan II. It was in fact the merger of the CPN (Unity Centre - Masal), the third largest communist party with eight seats in the Constituent Assembly, into the CPN-Maoist, now at the head of the coalition government. It must also be admitted that despite the vast difference in their sizes, the CPN-Maoist showed remarkable flexibility in dealing with a much smaller party, in that it agreed, among other things, even to modify its name to the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). This unification has further consolidated the CPN-M’s position as the largest party today.

But emotional unity is more important than physical oneness. As far as ideological lines are concerned, the Unity Centre has been regarded as closer to the CPN-Maoist than perhaps any other communist party. But the smaller soul mate had disagreed with the larger one’s armed struggle, and during the insurgency, the cadres of the two had also bitterly fought with each other on a number of occasions. This unification is not the first between them, either. Nearly one and a half decades ago, they had been unified, but they had parted ways over whether to go into ‘People’s War’. The unification would serve another useful purpose if it could send out a message for a coming together of other like-minded parties. Within the communist fold, there are two main political currents - a radical line represented by the CPN-M and the other, a much watered-down version, by the CPN-UML. For tiny parties, it might prove wiser to embrace the main political current that may come closer to their own ideology in fundamentals. Such a course would help them considerably to realise their policies; otherwise their existence would only continue to hold academic significance.

For the centrist and rightist parties, and for others espousing common causes, unification would be likely to give them added strength. But, sadly, in Nepal, party unifications and splits have often been guided more by convenience of the moment than by principle. Personality clashes, greed for power, tussle over leadership have been some of the causes of splits. Communist parties have also often split up on spurious ideological grounds, say, over differing interpretations of a word. On the other hand, unifications have often taken place in order to give leaders personal gain. All major parties and most of the smaller ones have gone through at least one cycle of split and re-unification, including the NC, the CPN-UML, the CPN-Maoist, and the RPP. Gross opportunism of many senior leaders has led to such situations, which have been reflected in the poor quality of politics in the country. It may look surprising that even more than one year after re-unification of the Koirala-led and Deuba-led Congresses, their sister organisations are still seen to be operating in parallel. Confusion arising from a plethora of parties could be considerably reduced if the parties sharing common principles and policies came together.