Nepal-India-China and the West

EDITORIAL

Nepal-India-China and the West

One cringes to say: ‘we told you so’. But, we must. This is no system. It doesn’t work like one. Prime Minister K.P. Oli with close to two-thirds majority in parliament must tell the world that foreign attempts are being made to dislodge him. Parliamentarianism would have thought his task easy. As chairman of his party, he would use his hold over the party and parliamentarians to dislodge the dissidents. Diplomatically, he would summon his foreign opponents here to expose their activities and warn them of dire consequences. The fact that he doesn’t do so would mean he can’t. This would mean that his party support is questionable and his ability to move diplomatically has been stifled. His opponents must thus be asked to dethrone him with the strength of numbers in parliament. But it evidently can’t. If such simple parliamentary practice as to have an elected government be supported in office by a parliamentary majority and be voted out of it cannot happen in Nepal in the midst of foreign intervention supporting or opposing a government within our territory, what does it say of the system we keep heralding as manufactured in Nepal? Why is K.P. Oli still in office?

No offence to Oli, though. If he can stay in office in this manner, so can anyone. We have already gone through that rigmarole of a public debate on whether the party secretariat can dictate terms to an elected prime minister. Whether it can or cannot depend, firstly, on the party charter that elected the prime minister to parliament in the very first place. But a democratic constitution would, to be democratic, ride over party provisions, since they can be different in different parties, would insist on the fact that Oli retains his office at the behest of a majority agreement in parliament. Can a system exist where the prime minister has spun off his party control and can spurn parliamentary control? Yes it can, in Nepal. And, so, this is no system. If, as alleged, the Indians want to dump him and should be allowed to do so in Nepal, why can’t the Chinese be allowed to prop him?, one might ask. After all the both are foreign countries in Nepal and have no place in the system.

Or, have they? The barrage of opinions being blasted in the media now openly admits wrong in having supported the Nepali communists to power. What is a system, if not the people, but a foreign neighbour can claim ownership of government! The insinuations of such are many, especially when being admitted by India that was the first country in the world to declare the Nepali Maoists as terrorists. The export of terror, if one recalls rightly is an international crime. But, in the Nepali case, this is not to matter since; after all, Western governments went along with this riding piggy back on Indian support. No wonder that MCC is supporting Western interests so wrong in Nepal. We are, after all, as this sponsorship insists, in a democratic, republican, federal, secular system!

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