By Tika R Pradhan in The Kathmandu Post, March 27, 2023
The Maoist Centre-CPN-UML ruling coalition collapsed within two months of its formation. Now the Congress-led 10-party coalition is in place in Kathmandu, and its reverberations are being felt in the provincial politics as well. In this context, the Post’s Tika R Pradhan spoke to the UML deputy general secretary and former chief minister of Gandaki province Prithvi Subba Gurung, who was also among the architects of the earlier Maoist Centre-UML coalition. Excerpts:
You had worked so hard to bring about the left alliance. Why did the Maoist Centre-UML alliance unravel so quickly?
Right after we formed a progressive alliance, many forces became active to break it apart. The left alliance was formed to fight for national independence and reduce external interference so as to ensure political stability. The major reason for the breaking of our alliance was geopolitics.
Those external forces sowed insecurity in the Maoist Centre leaders over the issue of the peace process. They terrorised them with the International Criminal Court threat. The Maoists could not resist that pressure and started looking for ways to break the coalition.
The second reason why the left coalition broke down was that Nepali political leaders are not habituated to working in a joint front built on the foundations of understanding, ethics, trust and cooperation. From the very beginning, they start seeing each other with enmity and distrust.
Besides, the two top leaders of the alliance could not forge an agreement on power-sharing, including the sharing of ministries.
Instead of reducing the points of conflict, the elections of the President and the Vice President only exacerbated the contradictions and created more confusion. Right then, the external forces struck and broke the coalition in a single blow.
The coalition’s unravelling cost the UML the most. Why didn’t its leadership try to save it?
In terms of positions—the UML lost the President, prime minister and ministries and four provincial governments. But it does not mean the Maoist Centre achieved a lot. It lost credibility in the national and international arenas, which will be hard to reclaim. Due to the unstable nature of the Maoist leaders, the foreign forces that used them will also readily ditch them. The CPN (Unified Socialist) leaders also failed to justify splitting from the mother party. As a whole, the left movement in Nepal has been hit hard by this development.
Shouldn’t the party chair take responsibility for this?
I don’t think much effort was made to save the coalition. The party leadership should take the responsibility for this. We knew from the very beginning that many forces were trying to break the coalition. We should have been better prepared. Not preparing was our weakness. Due to this, things began to break apart.
How do you think the UML should move ahead from this point?
Our path is clear: the UML will remain in the opposition. We won’t try to make another alliance, right away. Our alliance was broken due to the lack of trust and that cannot be restored overnight. But, in the long run, it’s the basic norm of politics to forge alliances to weaken the main competitor. The UML will do the same.
How will the UML play the role of the main opposition?
The opposition party cannot remain idle when the government tries to bring anti-national bills or those that inconvenience the people. We will try to stop them through every possible means. But this doesn’t mean the UML won’t be a constructive opposition.
UML chair KP Sharma Oli seems to be hinting at a possible Congress-UML alliance in the near future. Is that feasible?
I think Oli was trying to hint at the unstable behaviour of Dahal—his tendency to change alliances once in a while. He meant to say that this kind of opportunism could lead to another change in the coalition. That was nothing but a symbolic protest against Dahal’s power-hungry mentality. The force that used the Maoists Centre can also leave them high and dry in the next two months. That is what Oli wanted to remind Dahal of. It doesn’t mean that we will try to break this new coalition in another two months.
What are the prospects of a UML-Congress government in the near future?
Based on parliamentary norms, the first and the second parties don’t normally join hands to form a government. But in practice, it could happen. But there is still an alternative of forming a coalition by going beyond the Congress-UML combo. If needed, we should go there again. But in terms of programmes, principles, policy and even ideological issues, we the Congress and the UML are competitors. One is in favour of national independence and good governance and the other is not.
It is said that in the UML, the chair dictates the party’s decisions.
It seems so, but we have given the party chair the requisite authority to decide important matters. But giving authority to someone does not work all the time. An individual will make decisions that are different to the ones groups make. What we need to realise from the party chairman’s failure to save the left coalition is that certain decisions must be left to requisite party committees.
Prime Minister Dahal has said that the main reason for the old coalition’s breakdown was Oli’s decision to defend his twin House dissolutions.
Though House dissolution is part of normal parliamentary practice, questions were raised about the context in which it happened. But it is not right to say, as some have, that our chairman will again flippantly dissolve the House should another such situation arise.
If UML could lure back Madhav Nepal, it could be the largest party. What efforts are being made in that direction?
Nothing is impossible in politics. Our relationship with Madhav Nepal-led CPN (Unified Socialist) is gradually becoming cordial. The earlier enmity is dying down. We have started the dialogue and now recognise the party. They could not prove that their decision to split was right. We also realised that the split has badly affected the mother party. So it will be no surprise if the two parties decide to unite again. If such unity comes about, we cannot rule out Madhav Nepal becoming the next prime minister of the UML.
Why has the UML regressed in terms of ensuring inclusion?
We could not give continuity to our earlier spirit of inclusiveness—previously we had a female whip. This time, we could not ensure inclusion in the choice of chief ministers and even in top constitutional positions. We see the domination of a single caste everywhere.
There are reports that former President Bidya Bhandari is joining politics and becoming UML chair.
It’s up to her what she wants to do. It’s not written anywhere that a former President cannot join politics. It also depends on the kind of precedent the party wishes to set. We have to decide what a person who has already served in the state’s highest post can and cannot do. Or do we ban such a person from politics outright through new legal or constitutional provisions?
Wouldn’t the UML like to have a woman party chair?
It’s against meritocracy. It’s wrong to say that men and women should be party chairs by turns. That will create problems. If that happens, people can say why not a Janajati chair or a Dalit chair, or a Madheshi or a Muslim for that matter?
What do you make of the struggle against the naming of Koshi province?
Our state seems illiberal. People understood that the name Koshi did not recognise the identity of the people living in the region. Earlier, in my province, I had convinced lawmakers that the name Gandaki represents every ethnic group and community. But that could not happen in Koshi. Had it been named Kirat-Koshi, the problem would have been resolved. Decisions must have ownership of all the communities or else they will create conflict.
https://kathmandupost.com/interviews/2023/03/26/not-enough-was-done-to-save-the-left-coalition-government
