KPS Oli's resignation may not bring stability
The resignation of Nepal's Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on Sunday before facing a vote of no-confidence in the Parliament is once again plunging the fragile democracy into a political crisis. As his nine-months-old Government had to bow down, it is making way for former Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, popularly known as Prachanda, to take over as the new premier. He will set to form the new Government, probably with the support of the Nepali Congress. It shows how political parties are vying for their narrow interests despite realising the fact that a country ravaged by a deadly earthquake last year badly requires nothing more than a stable regime. To be precise, it is Prachanda's Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) that brought down the Oli Government. Besides, the two smaller coalition parties — Rastriya Prajatantra Party and the Madhesi People's Rights Forum-Democratic — also added to the crisis by withdrawing their support from the Government along with Prachanda. However, Oli's decision to resign before facing the vote of confidence has obviously put an end to the ambiguity that was gripping Nepal. It was a politically smart move to save his face because he knew well that he is surely going to lose. Carefully reading the writing on the wall, he even refused to continue as the caretaker Prime Minister till the election of the new one.
At a time when the Oli Government was relentlessly making a huge post-rehabilitation effort to resettle the vast majority of the people after the devastating earthquake that claimed almost 9,000 lives and coming in terms with the new Constitution of the country, this round of political uncertainty may push the impoverished Himalayan kingdom into a haven for militants and criminals. His political rivals, mainly Prachanda, has blamed him for failing to honour the power sharing deal and the Madhesi groups for not addressing their concerns, citing the new and divisive agenda, brought by the new Constitution last September. The embattled Prime Minister blaming “external forces” indirectly hinting at India, for conspiring against his Government can hardly be accepted because he could not survive the internal turmoil that triggered months long border blockade in southern Nepal by demonstrators from the minority Madhesi community. It must be made clear that India's only concern was to see a stable Government in its land-locked border nation which had been witnessing ups and downs since the dissolution of the country's long-ruled monarchy. Prachanda was up in arms against the Oli regime as it failed to implement the agreement to withdraw war cases from the courts across the country and offer immediate amnesty to all his former Maoist rebels in the decade old insurgency that ended in 2006. Now the question is: Will there be a stable Government in Nepal in the near futureIJ Since the abolition of the monarchy and the convening of the first Constituent Assembly in May 2008, the country has had eight Prime Ministers from four different parties, and all of them worked for their divisive political interests, smacking of parochialism, leading the nation from bad to worse. Nepal's political crises must come to an end, or else it will drive the country into an abyss. Nepal deserves a better deal.