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Speaking on July 11, Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa reiterated the government commitment to remove transport cartels. “There is a conspiracy to restore transport cartels but the government won’t allow that,” he thun­dered. On the same day, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli instructed Minister for Transport Raghubir Mahaseth to take every possible measure to once and for all end the reign of these cartels. Yet there are reasons to doubt their sincerity.

When the Oli government had first announced the cancellation of registration of transport cartels three months ago, we were enthused. The ramshackle buses they ran inconvenienced passengers. Often, the aging buses were deadly. In the fiscal 2016-17, there were an average of 28 road accidents, and six deaths, in the country every single day, partly because these cartels would not allow other businessmen to operate new, safer buses on the routes they controlled.

But the anti-cartel drive soon ran into roadblocks. The Director General of the Department of Trans­port Rup Narayan Bhattari, who was spearheading the drive, was suspiciously transferred to the Ministry of Transport, on direct orders of Minister Mahaseth. Also, Home Minister Thapa and Transport Minister Mahaseth clearly don’t see eye to eye on the issue. Instead of cooperating to make the lives of Nepalis eas­ier, the ministers of this powerful government seem to be working at cross purposes.

There are vested interests in the ruling Nepal Com­munist Party (NCP) that would like to see the contin­uation of the transport cartels, and they seem to have an upper hand now. After initially announcing that the registration of all cartels would be cancelled from the new fiscal that starts next week, the government now says there is not enough time for all erstwhile cartels to register as private companies. This is disingenuous.

Had the government been serious, it could have forced the transport cartels to register as private com­panies in the past three months. But it chose to do nothing in this time and it would now have us believe there is not enough time. What is actually happening is that vested interests in the NCP have been allowed to prevail. The prime minister seems either uninterested or unable to take on these cartels, thereby adding to the growing suspicion that he is all talk and no action. Nepalis are starting to lose their trust in the govern­ment they so enthusiastically elected not long ago.

Most of the country was enthused when KP Sharma Oli became the prime minister of a strong government four and a half months ago. Particularly after the formal merger between the country’s two biggest communist parties, there was hope that the government under the newly-minted Nepal Communist Party would herald an era of stability and prosperity. With the appointment of clean and capable ministers and announcement of a slew of reforms, PM Oli seemed determined to act in the country’s best interest, even by displeasing those close to him.

This was the reason we gave his government the benefit of doubt in its early days. We have also given him credit where it is due. For instance he has done a good job on foreign policy, mostly by reducing the country’s overreliance on India. But there have of late been troubling signs too: Listing of popular protest sites as prohibited areas; the underhand way in which the government tried to roll back medical education reforms; lack of follow through on its commitment to remove all cartels and syndicates; and firing of a Nepal Television anchor who had dared question the information minister on his property details—to name a few.

There is more than a tinge of authoritarianism in these actions. They in turn have raised fears that the communist government, in the name of stability, wants to entrench itself in power and stifle dissent. Of course, not all of its decisions have been bad, even on the domestic front. We for instance support better monitoring of NGOs and proper documentation of foreigners living in Nepal. But even here regulation, not exclusion, should be the aim.

Make no mistake. The Oli government that came to power after a landslide election victory still has considerable public support. And, again, when it is doing something worthwhile, it is the media’s duty to appreciate it. But in a democracy a government cannot expect blind support of the media and the civil society, even if it doing a lot of good. Diversity of opinion and belief are in fact the heart and soul of democracy. As important are the virtues of transparency and account­ability. To start with, government ministers and ruling party MPs should develop a habit of entertaining and listening to diverse views. An insular government is also an ineffective one, or worse.

This year’s Secondary Education Examination (SEE) results, when they were first released on June 23, were bad enough. This first significant marker of academic credentials and cognitive abilities of students in Nepal once again showed a huge gulf in the quality of education being offered by private and public schools. Of the 451,532 regular examinees, the vast majority of the students who got the highest grades (A+ and A) were from private schools, while most of those who got the lowest grades (D and D+) were from public schools. This is a persistent trend and recent changes in exam patterns seem to have had little effect in the overall results.

Then, on June 24, the Office of the Controller of Examinations (OCE) that administers SEE, brought out another set of ‘correct’ results. Apparently, it had forgotten to include the weightage of practical examinations in the grades of some examinees. Also, due to a ‘technical error’ some students who were at the higher end of a particular range were mistakenly given a grade at the lower end of the range—for instance a student in the 3.65-4.0 (A+) range with a GPA of 4.0 was instead given a GPA of 3.65. Shockingly, when questioned, instead of owing up their mistake, the officials at the OCE could not stop congratulating themselves for daring to publish the ‘right results’ the very next day!

We understand that those at the office as well as students and common folks alike will take some time to get used to the SEE. It was only last year that it replaced the old mark-based School Leaving Certificate (SLC) examinations. Nonetheless, the OCE officials must surely have been aware that far too many students and their parents take the SEE exams very seriously. (One student has in fact already committed suicide due to her unexpectedly poor SEE results.) Still, the results of around 9,000 examinees (perhaps even more) were badly botched, subjecting them and their worried parents to great anxiety.

The cavalier attitude of the OCE officers leaves a lot to be desired. Those who refuse to own up their mistakes, nay, blunders, have no right to be employed in an office which by its nature calls for a high level of accountability. There are two broad lessons from the latest SEE saga. One, our public school education system is in need of a thorough overhaul. Two, unless those who were careless with SEE results this time are made liable for their action, with sackings if need be, we can expect similar botch-jobs in the future as well.

 If there is one thing China looks for while dealing with foreign countries, it is stability. In the under­standing of the Chinese leadership, countries, including China, can progress only if it has a stable polity. This can in turn be guaranteed only by strong national leaders, which partly explains President Xi Jin­ping’s centralization of powers in China; and it explains why the Chinese are so optimistic about the future of Nepal-China relations. President Xi and the Chinese leadership are ready to do business with perhaps the strongest prime minister in Nepal’s democratic history, who promises five years of uninterrupted reign.

Chinese scholars and diplomats alike were frustrat­ed by the constantly changing cast of characters in Singadurbar, with the Nepali government on average changing every nine months. Earlier, China used to see the monarchy as the guarantor of stability, but after its removal, it had been on a lookout for another depend­able ally in Nepal. And it has found one in KP Sharma Oli. This is what makes us optimistic that the agree­ments that PM Oli has signed with China, both during his first state visit in 2016 and during his second one in 2018, will be implemented.

Most significantly, President Xi expressed his confi­dence that the “rail network that runs through Shang­hai, Lhasa and Shigatse will reach Kathmandu, helping Nepal’s quest for development and prosperity.” Never before had the Chinese leadership expressed such faith in the cross-border rail network. Other bilateral agreements are aimed at increasing people-to-people and trade connectivity and helping the Nepali govern­ment achieve its dream of ‘prosperous Nepal, happy Nepalis’. There is one on development of cross-border power transmission lines, which, if realized, would reduce Nepal’s dependence on India both for the development and market-access for its electricity. An oversight mechanism has been established to ensure the Chinese projects in Nepal are completed on time.

These are all vital developments. Even as he increas­es his outreach to China, PM Oli has also been able to take his Indian counterpart into confidence. He must be given credit for this deft balancing act. Even if the record of his government on the domestic front is mixed, on foreign policy, it passes with flying colors so far. Perhaps the biggest test of his foreign policy will come via the Kerung-Kathmandu rail-link project, with its attendant geopolitical and economic implications, when the feasibility study is complete in August.