The first casualty of the CPN-UML rout has been Madhav Kumar Nepal’s post of general secretary – he has resigned after his defeat in Kathmandu Constituency No-2 amid the reverses the party has suffered across the country. The CPN-UML standing committee, after meeting on Sunday, made Amrit Kumar Bohara acting general secretary until the central committee decides on the matter on April 27. This gesture on Nepal’s part should be appreciated as he has rightly taken moral responsibility for the party’s debacle. The UML is showing signs of coming in third in seat tally after the CPN-Maoist and the Nepali Congress, which is a distant second. This poll outcome should therefore lead to a thorough review of the party’s policy and the performance of its entire central leadership, as well as the major causes of its humiliation and the steps required to reinvent it.

The UML needs to organise its eighth general convention as soon as possible to elect the new central leaders, to fashion a robust new course to meet the new challenges, and put vitality back into the party. The present leadership made the mistake of thinking that just because the voters had voted for the UML in the past they would do so in the present, too.

Ever since the Constituent Assembly election became a serious possibility after Jana Andolan II,

the CPN leaders had been claiming that they had their support base intact. They also used to argue that as the Maoists had established themselves as a political force through violence, the people would reject them in the elections, greatly reducing their political influence. This considerably explains the CPN-UML leadership’s overconfident speeches, which, to many, verged on the arrogant, made response to frequent appeals by top Maoist leaders for electoral alliances.

The task of rejuvenation is not easy. The UML has to regain much of its lost ground. It also needs to give a clear ideological message to the people. The policy of playing a double role will do no longer — projecting to the voters that it is a communist party and of telling foreigners that ‘communist’ is no more than a mere tag. In making a choice, therefore, the people are more likely to go with either the Nepali Congress or the CPN-Maoist, and the CPN-UML may well fall between two stools in the future, too. Much of the UML support base has gone over to the CPN-Maoist. The vast majority of Nepali voters have turned pro-Left over the years, as the fact that the CPN-Maoist and the CPN-UML have been two of the three nearest rivals in election results in the vast majority of the constituencies. Too much political opportunism and horse-trading and its various policy wobbles of the past must have taken their toll too. The CPN-UML leadership had seemed far removed from reality until the election results started coming out. This indicates their taking the electorate for granted for too long. The process of self-evaluation and correction must therefore start without delay to prepare the CPN-UML well for the general election that will take place after the new Constitution is promulgated.