Going, Going…

Editorial

Nepali political terminology was a while back given a new addition borrowing the English adage of mice deserting a sinking ship, the mice. Overly excessive experience of politicians shifting loyalties prompted the current constitution to assuage itself of the fluidity it generated by introducing clauses of time limits and more stringent requisites preventing splits and splinters. It does turn out that this is not enough to prevent inherent behaviour. Such stipulations alone have been proving inadequate for Prime Minister K.P. Oli or his competitor Pushpa Kamal Dahal to count their numbers. This, in fact, contributes to the ongoing series of postponements of NCP meetings where the battle lines change from postponement to postponement because of the uncertain numbers of supporters in the numbers game. The prime minister can thus simply continue to dig in his heels adamantly and also keep postponing the scheduled meets. He has said he will neither resign his premiership nor his party chairmanship.

But it is this adamancy that continues to bring the government to a standstill. While the government is at its routine, governance is not, and, problems mount of which Oli appears to be but one. An abruptly concluded fiscal session of parliament has more legislation pending. The MCC, the more controversial among these is, at this juncture, still at the street debate. The damage this is doing to our foreign policy apart. Prime Minister Oli has thrown in another of his unique challenges — the Ayodhya issue. He has by doing so stirred yet another hornets’ nest at home and in the neighbourhood bordering lunacy. Unravelling why has done so at this juncture has become a rather frustrating media exercise. Oli may have threatened to break his chair if his opponents are bent on ungluing him from it, but it could well be that he is welcoming it one way or another. The seeming lunacy is exasperating.

In a sense, the exasperation felt has become nationwide. From lunacy to defiance, the volumes of qualifications Oli has invited on himself can be the least amusing. He is the country’s prime minister after all. The country is currently enmeshed in a no-talk situation with India on the border and map issues. The seasonal floods court immediate attention as does COVID 19 and the resultant economic chaos and the blood is boiling among a population that is virtually courting desertion from their ingrained partisan loyalties. But is as if this matters little to a prime minister who could well be affected by doses of hormones promotes by his kidney treatment. Here are those, of course, that remain partisan in their search for options. If Oli won’t do, there is Dahal or Nepal but these are the very people K.P. seeks to negate. The Congress, on the other hand, is aware that they are a distant third in these scheme of things and will still meander in their search for leadership. To sum it, the virtual unofficial consensus is that the system has crashed. It must go. It is only when that matters.

People’s Review Print Edition