Any lingering doubts over the sustainability of the left alli­ance, and with it the longevity of the new left government, have been removed with the new sev­en-point agreement between CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli and his CPN (Maoist Center) counterpart Pushpa Kamal Dahal. Or have they? The February 19 agreement com­mits to the formal unification of the two parties, with all outstanding ideological issues to be settled in the next general convention, whenever it is held.

Political analyst Bishnu Sapkota does not buy the argument that the two parties have now united. “There is no ideological coherence between them, and without it, there can be no true unity,” he says. “In my view this is a purely power-sharing agree­ment, nothing more.”

Sapkota says he would have been more convinced had the unification happened “bottom-up rather than top-down”. Otherwise, he ques­tions, “How is it possible that Oli and Dahal could settle everything between them without consulting party colleagues?”

Sapkota also thinks that Dahal and the Mao­ists, by agreeing to abide by the principle of multi­party democracy, as stipulated in the seven-point deal, have in a roundabout way accepted UML’s official line of “people’s multiparty democracy”. Otherwise, “there is no place for multiparty democracy in Maoism”.

Ideology aside, party unification was endorsed after Oli had already become prime minister. What, then, was the signif­icance of the new deal?

“With this agreement, the two main communist forces of the country have formally accepted that there is no alternative to mul­tiparty democracy,” says Nilamber Acharya, former chairman of the Constitutional Committee of the first Constituent Assembly elected in 2008. “This means they fully accept the new constitution, which is most definitely not a communist document.”

In Acharya’s view, consolidation of the two communist forces could pave the way for a “strong two-par­ty system” that in the long run will strengthen democracy. But Acharya too has misgivings.

“How can we be assured that so many ambitious political personas can remain under the same roof for any length of time, particularly when there is no shortage of forces that want the left unity to unravel?” he asks.

Political commentator CK Lal also suspects the longevity of this “unnatural” unity. “It represents the consolidation of the traditional power structure. The ‘Permanent Establishment of Nepal’ now has a potent political front,” he says. “It was the pressure from PEON that brought them together. But in time the differences among PEON will be more and more pronounced, which in turn could imperil the left unity.”

When the two communist parties had announced an electoral alliance on the eve of the provincial and federal elections, China, it was suspected in some quarters, had encouraged, if not abetted, the left bonhomie.

In Lal’s reading, the February 19 agreement is in part a result of “Chi­na breathing down the neck of Oli and Dahal”. Lal predicts that with the left united and Oli-led govern­ment firmly in place the “anti-India and anti-West lobby will be strength­ened while the pro-China lobby will get a boost”.

Irrespective of the degree of Chi­nese involvement, another pub­lic intellectual, Hari Sharma, also doubts the two communist parties have ‘unified’ rather than ‘merged’. “A merger takes place between two unequal forces, when one is clearly dominant,” Sharma says. “A uni­fication, on the other hand, hap­pens between two equal forces”. In this reading, too, the Maoists have agreed to be subsumed under the UML fold.

Sharma also sees some troubling signs for the new government. “If Oli was the prime minister of the left alliance, why wasn’t a single Mao­ist leader present at his swear­ing-in? In coalition politics, such absence is highly symbolic.”

Nonetheless, if the two parties are serious about future unification, it is a positive development for a country like Nepal, Sharma adds. “Social science literature suggests that a fragmented polity leads to radicalization of society. Strong, consolidated political parties miti­gate against such a danger”.

But strong parties have strong ideological bases. Does the new out­fit have such a robust base? “This is something that worries me. Accord­ing to the seven-point agreement, the new party will have Marxism-Le­ninism as its guiding principle. If so, we have to assume they adhere to the principle of democratic cen­tralism, the bedrock of Leninist philosophy,” Sharma says.

In its essence, democratic cen­tralism believes in a strong central political leadership whose deci­sions are binding on those lower down the party chain. Democratic centralism, for instance, is a constitu­tionally-man­dated governing policy of China. “Do the leaders of the new party have Chinese leadership in mind, then?” Sharma asks.

Such ideological and leadership questions have always bedeviled the communist movement in Nepal that started with the birth of the Com­munist Party of Nepal in Calcutta in 1949. Formed with the intent of overthrowing the Rana autocracy in Nepal, the movement became mired in controversy right from its incep­tion. When power was transferred from the Ranas to the monarchs, a faction of the communist party decided to coopt the monarchy, while the other faction pursued a strident republican line, leading to the first formal split in 1962.

This started the seemingly endless process of periodic breakdown and consolidation of Nepali communist forces. Given this checkered history, the doubts now being raised about the long-term viability of the new communist outfit, which is now in control of virtually the entire state apparatus, are perhaps valid. Even the two communist parties in the ongoing unification process have seen many mergers and splits.

If history is any guide, we may not have to wait for long to find out whether the February 19 agree­ment is a purely power-sharing deal. Or if Messrs Oli and Dahal (and their party rank and file) are committed to an ideologically strong left force and a vibrant two-party democracy.

There is no denying the wish of the majority of Nepalis though. They heartily endorsed the common ‘prosperity and sta­bility’ platform of the left alliance.