The RSP should implement its 100-day plan by curtailing its over-ambitious programmes, like the high GDP growth when the average achievement has been dismal in the last 60 years
The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) has created an electoral miracle by registering a two-thirds landslide victory, defying the well-established narrative of the impossibility of obtaining a majority under the present constitutional dispensation. The RSP under the leadership of Balendra Shaha, the former mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City, crafted a clean sweep not only in the lowland Tarai but also in the midland mountains and the highland Himalayas, leaving mostly minnow constituencies to the old parties, the Nepali Congress (NC), the Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML), the Nepali Communist Party (NCP), and the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP). The identity-based Madhesi parties have been rendered unrecognisable after they lost all 32 seats in Madhes Pradesh. It has collapsed the invincible fort of Nepal Kisan Majdoor Party for the first time in the country's 35 years of parliamentarian history.
The RSP is set to bag a breathtaking 180 seats (125 direct + 55 proportional) in stark contrast to its rivals, the NC, the UML, and the NCP, with only about 34 (18 +16), 22 (9+13), and 14 (8+6) seats, respectively. The recently opened Work Labour Party of Harka Sampang, the former mayor of Dharan Municipality in eastern Nepal, did comparatively better by winning 3 seats in the FPTP when its contemporary, the Ujyalo Party, failed to win a single direct seat. Mahavir Pun, the former minister of Education, Science and Technology and the Magsaysay award winner, was the other notable solitary independent candidate who triumphed in the poll.
The most striking feature was the calm and quiet environment in which the election was conducted nationwide for the first time in its history. The credit is being rightly showered on the first lady Prime Minister of Nepal, Sushila Karki, also the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. She courageously took the responsibility as the interim Prime Minister after being appointed by President Ram Chandra Paudel at a time when the country was at its lowest morale of its long history.
It was brought about by the reckless killing of 77 Gen Z persons in a protest rally rightly held against the rising corruption and bad governance underway in the country, which was followed by the undesired arson and looting of national icons. These were the Parliament building, the Supreme Court, the historic national secretariat Singha Durbar, several other government buildings around the country together with the private buildings mainly of the politicians. Prime Minister Karki immediately formed a committee to look into the excesses of the incident under the chairmanship of Supreme Court Justice Gauri Bahadur Karki, who has incidentally submitted its report immediately after the election.
The election witnessed the political demise of not only the ever vituperative and boastful but also irresponsive and unaccountable K P Oli, former prime minister and chairman of the UML, as evidenced by his refusal to take moral responsibility for the Gen Z killings during his tenure as the prime minister. He was beaten by the magical Balendra by more than 50,000 votes. The president of the NC, Gagan Thapa, also faced a similar misfortune after being defeated by former NC member and presently RSP candidate Dr Amrish Kumar Singh by a wide margin of 12,000 votes.
Thapa and the NC were expected to fare much better, especially after speedily organising the Special General Convention that ousted the seating president and five-time apparently corrupt former prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and several other tainted political leaders.
The RSP had emerged in this political doldrum, marked by the spiralling corruption and bad governance, and secured 21 seats in its very maiden effort in the last election. Unfortunately, its leader Rabi Lamichhane, a former TV anchor, got embroiled in irregularities of double passport acquisition and the cooperative scam where he was alleged to have siphoned huge amounts of depositors' money. He had to remain behind bars for several months after the court verdict following the recommendations of an alleged politically-inspired parliamentary committee participated by an RSP parliamentarian.
Despite this, the popularity of the RSP was increasing owing to the hopeless performance by the old political parties, the NC and UML, in the government particularly due to the mishandling of the Gen Z movement. It shot up exponentially after the less speaking but hard working and charismatic Balendra joined the RSP as its senior leader and prime ministerial candidate.
Such landslide victories have, however, occurred at least on two occasions in the past, firstly during the 1958 elections when the NC was led by debonair B P Koirala and secondly in 2006, when the Nepal Communist Party (Maoist) was led by Prachanda. Both of them happened to be damp squibs with the former popularly-elected Government of Koirala dismissed by late King Mahendra and the latter after Prachanda tendered his resignation due to confrontation with the then president, Ram Baran Yadav.
The victorious RSP should draw lessons from the aforementioned unfortunate political episodes and move ahead by working hand in glove with the opposition however small. It should implement its 100-day plan by curtailing some of its overambitious programmes like the high-per cent national growth when its average achievement has been merely 4 per cent in the last 60 years. It should address the spinal essence of the Gen Z movement, namely, the corruption and bad governance.
The vanquished opposition parties have lost the federal election, but they still enjoy support in the National Assembly, the local and provincial governments. They should thus immediately elect a new leader in view of the drastic failure of the present leadership to gain the confidence of the people. They should exercise good politics by cooperating with the good programmes of the RSP and vice versa as the country cannot afford any more political sweet nothings as was seen in the post-1990 democratic era.
