Editorial

It has been decades since a Nepali Congress leader claimed that his party was more left than the left. That party claims that it is more centrist these days, with the right being the RPP and other monarchists and the left being all the communist parties put together. For while there, the communists were taking various partisan shapes until the Supreme Court and the Election Commission decided to send the growing conglomerates scurrying into groups and factions. It is not quite clear whether there is a Madhav Nepal faction in the UML or they are separate parties but the UML remains the largest left party in parliament and outside followed by the Maoist Center led by Prachanda and then there are the single representatives of the Samyukta Jana Morcha and the Majdoor Kisan Party who claim communist thoughts outside of which there are the spurious left personalities gathered under shifting banners. What is important is that we are now talking of a Left movement in the country and no longer Left-led parties and the strangest phenomenon is that the ‘left movement’ is currently being led by the center, namely, Sher Bahadur Deuba and his Congress. In other words, perhaps sooner than the year and a half remaining of Deuba’s prime ministerial turn, Deuba can well dissolve parliament for elections since he is the non-partisan prime minister under which he was elected. In that even, elections will be made possible by the manner with which he shares seats with the broader left movement which will also include the K.P. Oli led UML. In other words, to make the elections possible the political cartel encouraged over the years will see to it that none oppose the elections. This would mean that Prime Minister Deuba is not too bothered to expand his highly limited cabinet numbers. He has already bought time by dissolving the parliamentary session. He has set schedules for his party plenary once again for November. By this time, probably, he will have found things convenient to declare elections. This could well, moreover, also suit his senior theoretical ‘Left’ partner in comrade Prachanda who call his party convention for December. Enough alignments back him to allow Oli to come to terms with elections that he sought to conduct anyway. Since the Left is a movement whose chained is to be towed by Sher Bahadur Deuba, the field is clear for elections and Deuba, no better, is aware of this. Provided, that is, the powers that be allow him the prerogative granted the late Girija Koirala. Girija led the largest parliamentary party and the UML was the party in the parliamentary opposition whereas the Maoists were the force allowed to enter parliament through the backdoor. Currently, Deuba is a minority unable to patch up a cabinet that can insure his numbers in parliament. With ever-ambitious Prachanda sitting on the sidelines propping him and with K.P. Oli aware that his majority can slide his way just as easily as it slid against him, Deuba is aware that it is best to allow the Left to assume a movement instead of giving them the advantage of political parties. Whether it is Deuba’s game or his mentors’, there is always the ever willing Madhav Nepal to oblige in fomenting the liquidity. The problem is that this liquidity has been increasing for decades and the regional environments are such that this is to no one's advantage. Something must, thus, give way soon or else the costs will be heavy all around.