New Delhi, July 30 (IANS) For most part of the four months that he has been in office, Nepal Prime Minister Balendra Shah, or Balen popularly, has been under media scrutiny for his largely reclusive style, where his limited engagement with the Parliament and President Ramchandra Paudel stands highlighted, raising questions about whether he can balance his unconventional ways with the constitutional expectations of a parliamentary democracy.
The Kathmandu Post on Thursday called Balen “A Prime Minister who does not call on the President”, stating that “Prime Minister Shah’s engagement with President Paudel has remained limited to formal occasions. No substantive consultations have taken place in four months.”
According to the report, apart from official events such as swearing-in and state functions, “Shah has avoided direct meetings with the President”.
It pointed out that major decisions, like Cabinet reshuffles, the summoning and prorogation of parliament, and issuance of ordinances, have all reportedly “moved forward without the traditional one-on-one briefings expected between the head of government and the head of state”.
It quoted unnamed officials at Sheetal Niwas, the official residence of the President, viewing this behaviour as a “clear noncompliance of established democratic practices”.
An official expressed disappointment over the government’s failure to present the annual performance report of the Council of Ministers, where Prime Ministers earlier personally submitted the document to the President before it was forwarded to the Parliament, added the report.
Earlier reportage raised the issue of his absence from key parliamentary sessions, including the first meeting of the House of Representatives in April and debates on government policy in May.
And when he did, “Prime Minister Balendra Shah left the House of Representatives just 20 minutes after arriving to attend Tuesday’s meeting,” reported Republica on July 14.
He is said to have walked out mid-speech while President Paudel was presenting his government’s agenda.
“Balen’s politics of silence and absence: Not a harbinger of good omen”, said an opinion piece in The Himalayan Times in May.
“People were further astonished by the walkout of the Prime Minister from the Parliament during the delivery of the annual plan and the programme by President Ram Chandra Paudel,” it stated.
The article, stressing the importance of the Prime Minister’s presence in the discussion of government plans and programmes in the Parliament, alleged that the Opposition’s demand for the Prime Minister’s presence was ignored by the publication of a month-long schedule sans his participation in the parliamentary proceedings.
According to Balen’s supporters, while earlier Prime Ministers sat for hours together in the Parliament and spoke sweet nothings, Balen is attending to real work.
The article, however, questioned this view, claiming that supporters little realise “that in a parliamentary system, the presence of the Prime Minister during parliamentary proceedings is also a responsibility”.
However, Balen’s reclusiveness is not new.
During the run‑up to the March polls, he largely stayed away from mass rallies and public congregations. His campaign leaned heavily on social media and symbolic gestures rather than traditional political mobilisation. Many then thought his “aloof-style” found an appeal among younger voters disillusioned with Nepal’s noisy political culture.
But it also alienated allies who expected more visible leadership. More than the real world, Balen’s larger-than-life aura was built online – on social media – that the engineer-rapper-politician confined himself to. This style/strategy carried into his premiership, where his preference for distance now appears less like discipline and more like disengagement, as reports imply. And that may risk being interpreted as arrogance or disregard for institutions.
–IANS
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