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Oli vs Prachanda: China weighing in as political crisis in Nepal intensifies?
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Apart from the focus on trade and connectivity, China has also worked to build defence ties with Nepal as evident again from defence minister Wei Fenghe s visit to Kathmandu last month. India can perhaps afford to be a lot less edgy about the situation despite signs of a rapprochement with the Oli government in the past couple of months, including a visit by foreign secretary Harsh Shringla to Kathmandu.
(This story originally appeared in on Dec 24, 2020)As the political crisis in Nepal intensifies, the Chinese ambassador in Kathmandu, Hou Yanqi, has set tongues wagging that China could be making one final attempt to keep the flock of warring Communist leaders together. The ambassador met Nepal president B D Bhandari, who had lost no time in approving PM K P Oli s recommendation to dissolve Parliament, Tuesday.
Is the person bigger than the party? That seems to be the case in Nepal where the prime minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, has dissolved the House of Representatives and called for fresh elections in a few months’ time. Mr Oli’s principal rival, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, has responded predictably: Mr Oli has been removed by the central committee of the ruling Nepal Communist Party from the post of party chairman. The feud is expected to get uglier, and Mr Oli can claim credit for this marked deterioration. The genesis of this crisis can be traced back to the simmering tensions between the comrades. The Nepal Communist Party was born when Mr Oli’s Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) decided to bury the hatchet with the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist-Centre) led by Mr Dahal. But this unity was far from robust. Mr Oli had been a staunch critic of Mr Dahal’s role in the civil war. He also reneged on the pledge to share power with his rival after a stipulated period of time.
4360 DESPERATION: Earlier this year, PM Oli raised an ultra-nationalist bogey by laying claim to Indian territory via cartographic adventurism. Reuters
Manjeev Singh Puri
Former Ambassador of India to Nepal
NEPAL’S politicians are busybodies and even Covid-19 hasn’t been able to keep them under lockdown. On December 20, Parliament was hastily dissolved by the President on the advice of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and his Cabinet, even though the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) had a near two-thirds majority and there were at least two more years to go before its five-year term ended. Fresh elections in May are being mentioned, but doubters believe that the dissolution is only a ploy by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli to stave off serious challenges to his leadership within the NCP and somehow remain in power.
Why does Nepal suddenly find itself without a parliament?
Faced with dissent, its prime minister dissolved the lower house of parliament. A file photo of Nepal Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli. | Isabel Infantes/AFP
Nepal has quietly plunged into a constitutional crisis. After months of tension within the ruling Nepal Communist Party, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on Sunday recommended that the country’s lower house of parliament be dissolved. Nepal President Bidya Devi Bhandari duly followed through.
Oli’s defence: “The elected government was pushed to a corner and picketed against” by rival factions of his own party, so what could he do but dissolve parliament? If the country’s Supreme Court does not stay the move, Nepal will go into elections on April 30 and May 10 to elect a new government.