Kathmandu, March 4 (IANS) The Nepali Congress, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) (CPN-UML), and the erstwhile CPN (Maoist Centre) have ruled the country turn by turn over the last two decades.
Their respective leaders — Sher Bahadur Deuba, KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal — have been at the helm of power for the last decade or so.
A growing impression among the Nepali public that the country is lagging because of these leaders and that corruption is rife triggered strong Gen Z protests in September last year, which brought down the coalition government led by then Prime Minister Oli.
Angry mobs burnt down the residences of the three leaders during the movement, in which a total of 77 people died, and properties worth billions of rupees were damaged.
Six months down the line, the country is heading to parliamentary polls on Thursday. These traditional political parties and leaders are facing what may be the biggest challenge in the country’s electoral history amid rising public dissatisfaction.
New political forces, particularly the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) led by former media personality Rabi Lamichhane and popular youth leader and former Mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City Balen Shah, who is also the RSP’s prime ministerial candidate, appear to be posing a strong challenge to these traditional parties, at least on paper.
Several journalists who visited different parts of the country to gauge public mood have said a wind of change is being felt, though to what degree remains unclear.
“Given the circumstances under which the election is being held, old political parties and their leaders are facing an acid test in these elections,” former Chief Election Commissioner Neel Kantha Uprety told IANS. “Their performance when they were in power was not up to the mark, which contributed to dissatisfaction among the masses.”
He said that frequent changes in government also contributed to the underperformance of traditional political parties and their leaders. “As they are facing the elections amid allegations of underperformance and corruption, it is obvious that their challenge is enormous,” he said.
On the other hand, the RSP is contesting the elections with popular faces such as Lamichhane and Shah. The former Kathmandu mayor is contesting against former Prime Minister Oli in his traditional base, Jhapa-5, in eastern Nepal.
Oli appears to have sensed a real challenge from Shah this time, as he has been fully focused on his own constituency during the election campaign, unlike in previous elections when he travelled across the country seeking votes for his party’s candidates.
The newly elected president of the Nepali Congress, Gagan Thapa, is also contesting the elections from Sarlahi-4 in southern Nepal, where local leader Ameresh Kumar Singh of the RSP is in the fray.
Singh is a former NC lawmaker and represented the constituency in the dissolved House of Representatives.
As Thapa is a popular leader within the rank and file of the grand old party, the party is hoping to perform well in these elections.
Former Prime Minister Deuba is no longer in the leadership after a special general convention, organised without his approval, elected Thapa as the new president.
According to analysts, leftist forces in Nepal could face major challenges in the elections because they failed to change their top leadership, unlike the Nepali Congress.
Oli’s sway continues in the CPN (UML), while Prachanda continues to lead the new party — the Nepali Communist Party — formed after the merger of the erstwhile CPN (Maoist Centre) and CPN (Unified Socialist), among others.
“The ouster of the Oli-led government by the Gen Z movement could have a big impact on the UML’s electoral prospects,” said political analyst Lok Raj Baral, a former Nepali ambassador to India. “The personality of Oli, who sometimes makes unnecessary comments, could also affect the UML’s chances.”
On the other hand, the NCP has been losing ground since the Maoists emerged as the largest party in the 2008 Constituent Assembly elections.
“In the past two elections, Prachanda’s party won a sizable number of seats in the House of Representatives because of electoral alliances,” said Baral.
“With political parties avoiding electoral alliances this time, the NCP may have a hard time securing enough votes to win, particularly under the First-Past-the-Post system.”
Past tallies of elections under the proportional representation system suggest that the erstwhile CPN (Maoist Centre) won enough votes to secure victories under the FPTP system, but its vote share in the same constituencies remained much lower under proportional representation, indicating that the party benefited from electoral alliances under FPTP.
–IANS
scor/dan
