In a televised address to the nation on November 22, caretaker Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai has expressed his willingness to step down for the sake of national consensus. But what faces the Himalayan nation at the moment is a crisis of legitimacy witnessed never before in the political history of modern Nepal.
The PM said that he is ready to make "sacrifice of any kind" to attain a broader political consensus in order to find a way out of the prevailing constitutional and political impasses in the country. While speculations were rife that the PM would step down by addressing the nation, Bhattarai did not clearly reveal what sort of sacrifice he was ready to endure for the sake of national consensus. Only towards the end of his speech, he said that "if the present government is an obstacle to consensus, I am ready to step down."
But the mute question is sheer absence of an alternative to the present government. The opposition led by Nepali Congress (NC) although has announced a series of protest programmes against the government to pressurise Bhattarai to step down, the NC has been unable to come up even with a prime ministerial candidate given the deep-seated mistrust and rivalry within the party. It is unlikely that it would be able to do so in the near future as well. The protest programmes too have been too feeble and lack popular support. It is a mockery of the democratic credentials of a revolutionary party like NC to have limited their actions to criticising the Maoists and not being able to come up with any concrete alternative national agenda.
The buzz word, also emphasised throughout the PM’s Thursday speech, was consensus. But consensus has been illusive in Nepal since the Constituent Assembly (CA) was dissolved on May 28 this year. Although Bhattarai has claimed that he would leave no stone unturned for national consensus, all political stakeholders, the Nepali people and the international actors know that such a consensus which determined the 2006 peace deal between the then seven-party alliance and Maoist is almost impossible to conceive now. The Maoists, Madhesis, Janajati alliance, and other parties like NC and CPN-UML are all at loggerheads over major issues of national concern, mainly the restructuring of the country and the kind of federalism to be adopted for the future.
Thus it is unlikely that any national agreement could be reached at this point in Nepal. Although all political leaders claim that they do not want to obstruct consensus, there is no meeting point in sight for conclusion of a fresh deal for holding of the new election. Bhattarai had given November 22 as the date for election to a new CA, but it was clear from the beginning that no election was possible till April next year.
What is indeed clear is that April 2013 will be crucial for Nepal. If the political leaders fail to arrive at consensus and chart a way out and if no polls are held by April next year, it will invite significant measures from the office of the President, who at the moment does not have constitutional legality to act on his own. Article 158 of the Interim Constitution gives power to the President to remove difficulties, but adds that the President can act only on the recommendation of the Council of Ministers.
But President Ram Baran Yadav has played his cards well of late. By sticking to his constitutional limitations, he sided with the Bhattarai government and approved the Budget ordinance this week in spite of stiff resistance from the opposition that appealed to the President not to pass the budget ordinance. The President has alleviated his own position and strengthened it as he is now in a better position to call for a national consensus government. He could give the parties one last chance but if the situation continues, he will be compelled to take drastic measures.
PM Bhattarai, who came down heavily on the opposition for obstructing consensus, has defended his government’s plans and policies for being pro-people. But against the backdrop of widespread hue and cry over the government’s unilateral decision on budget and CA polls, he can achieve little in days ahead. For now, it is only status quo in Nepali polity.
(The writer is an Associate Fellow at Observer Research Foundation)
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