Brief update on Nepal's political scene

Since many people have asked us about the political situation in Nepal the past few weeks, we thought we’d post an update.

 

Already facing stumbling blocks, Nepal’s fragile peace process suffered another blow as the Prime Minister Puspa Kamal Dahal Prachanda resigned from his post on May 4, 2009. A weeks-long political deadlock on the issue of the Cabinet’s decision to fire the Chief of Army resulted in the crumbling of the Maoist-led coalition government. Since the Prime Minister’s resignation, major opposition parties, particularly the Nepali Congress (NC) and leftist party Nepal Communist Party United Marxist Leninist Party (UML), are arduously trying to firm a new government.

 

Both parties, NC and UML have proposed as their candidate for the Prime Minister, UML’s former General Secretary Mr. Madav Kumar Nepal. The irony of his candidacy is that he lost both his candidacies during the Constituent Assembly election a few years ago. Due to his embarrassing defeat, he resigned from his post as party General Secretary.

 

It is not clear whether Mr. Nepal would gain the needed support from other political parties. Nonetheless, given Nepal’s ongoing frail peace process, it is not a critical issue of who leads the new interim-government instead whether the new government can become sustainable and effective to carry out the peace process into its logical endpoint. At the forefront of this process is the integration of Maoist ex-combatants into Nepal’s security forces, to finish writing a new ‘Peoples’ constitution by May 2010, and to return the confiscated individual property that was seized by the Maoist during the war.

 

Political analysts argue that without the Maoist’s support no government can sustain and precede Nepal’s peace process effectively. The twelve-year long civil conflict and the Constituent Assembly election have established the Maoist as an indispensable political force. This political situation requires that if the peace process is to be successful, the Maoist and all political parties need to work together.