The May 17 merger between the CPN-UML and the CPN (Mao­ist Center) is undoubtedly a momentous occasion in Nepali polit­ical history. The communist behe­moth that is the combined Nepal Communist Party now commands a near two-thirds majority in the federal parliament, and heads six of the seven provincial governments. Never before has a political party of any stripe so completely dominated national polity. Nor in the democrat­ic history of Nepal has there been a prime minister as strong as KP Sharma Oli. The left unity, which had been in the works for the past six months, has generated a lot of hope. Barring a political earthquake, the left gov­ernment will serve out its five-year term, which is again something that has never happened before. Econ­omists have repeatedly blamed the political instability of the post-1990 political set-up as a major hurdle to the country’s development and to the economic empowerment of its people. The hope now is that prosperity will follow a stable polity.

 

Yet there are grave fears over the left unity. The biggest of them is that the ruling party, in its seemingly single-minded focus on develop­ment and prosperity, could curtail democratic freedoms and intimi­date opposing voices, perhaps to build a ‘communist utopia’ in due course. Presently, the only other country to have an elected commu­nist government, Cambodia, is only nominally democratic. Its prime minister, Hun Sen, has continuously been in office for 33 years, making him the longest-serving prime min­ister in world history.

 

Single-party corporatism

 

Asked why the two big commu­nist parties in Nepal came together, political commentator Krishna Kha­nal bluntly replies, “To maintain a stranglehold on power”. Were that not the case, he asks, “why is the Nepal Communist Party trying to enlist other smaller parties in the government, when it already has a comfortable majority?”

 

Khanal likens the left merger to trying to establish a “single-party corporatism”. He finds it troubling that the media, which is itself corpo­ratized, is blindly supporting the left unity, when what it should be doing is critically questioning the rationale for the merger.

 

Nilamber Acharya, another polit­ical analyst, is more sanguine. “The unity will end the unhealthy competition among the political parties to get into govern­ment. Now the only way for the opposition parties to get back to power is by going to the people for a fresh mandate, which is how it should be in a democracy,” he says.

 

But doesn’t he fear the risks asso­ciated with an all-powerful ruling party and an emasculated oppo­sition? “Look, the opposition, by definition, is in a minority. Its strength depends not on the num­ber of its MPs but on the kinds of issues it raises. The onus is now on the opposition parties to regain public faith by raising pro-people issues,” Acharya says.

 

Senior Nepali Congress leader Ram Saran Mahat, for his part, fore­sees risks as well as benefits of the left unity. “One hopes that with a strong government, there will now be policy continuity and timely deci­sion-making, both of which were missing during the terms of pre­vious, unstable coalition govern­ments,” Mahat says.

 

Many plans, zero programs

 

Yet Mahat also sees some alarming signs. “On the economic front, this government is distribution-orient­ed rather than focused on increas­ing our capital base. Such distri­bution-oriented programs could ultimately bankrupt the country.”

 

Mahat is also uncomfortable with the centralization of powers in the PMO. “The prime minister should be providing overall vision and leadership, not busy himself with every little operational detail. I suspect the current government has authoritar­ian tendencies.”

 

Economist Biswo Poudel espies lack of clarity on the priorities of the new party and the government. “The government, for instance, says it will offer loans to industries and hydro projects at subsidized rates. But to get those loans the industries will have to pay hefty bribes, which negates the benefits of the subsi­dized loans.”

 

And what did Poudel make of the government’s Policies and Pro­grams announced in the run-up to this year’s national budget. “Frank­ly, its garbage. It’s all policies, but no programs. It talks of big dreams but offers little in terms of how to realize them.”

 

But won’t political stability in itself contribute to the country’s prosperity? “Not necessarily,” Pou­del argues. “If political stability were enough, the 30 years of Panchayat rule would have transformed the country,” he says.

 

Krishna Khanal also points to the potential for abuse of ‘democratic centrism’, one of the guiding prin­ciples of the new party. “In this system, once the party leadership makes a decision, it is binding upon all party members. Lenin used this princi­ple to sideline Trotsky. In other words, democratic cen­tralism can be used to sideline alternative voices in the party.”

 

Khanal believes the left unity gov­ernment has achieved precious little in its nearly 100 days in office, and thus has already failed to honor its mandate. Nilamber Acharya dis­agrees. “The biggest achievement of the first 100 days is the left unity itself—for it will have far-reaching impacts on the country. Now that the unification is done and dusted, the government can focus on other important things,” he says.

 

Biased against Madhes

 

Ram Saran Mahat also questions the new party’s adoption of demo­cratic centralism. He reckons dem­ocratic centralism is directly against the spirit of the new egalitarian constitution. But while he criticiz­es the government, the Congress leader also vows to play the role of a responsible and effective oppo­sition, “much like we did during the nine months of the Manmohan Adhikari government in 1995, when Nepali Congress helped rein in its populist programs.”

 

Veteran Madhesi journalist Rajesh Ahiraj questions if the ruling com­munist party can give society a pos­itive direction. “The authoritarian tendencies it has displayed in its short existence could ultimately fuel secessionism in parts of Nepal,” he cautions. Why, for instance, was the chief minister of Province 2 prevent­ed from visiting the US, he asks?

 

Ahiraj says the new party’s lead­ership is not inclusive; there is not a single Madhesi in its nine-member top brass, “which will only add to the old fear among the Madhesi people that KP Oli and company are somehow anti-Madhes.”

 

From all these observations it becomes clear that the biggest chal­lenge for the Nepal Communist Par­ty will be to prove that it is commit­ted to democratic values and that it will embrace all Nepalis, irrespec­tive of their color or place of origin.

 

As Nilamber Acharya says, ulti­mately, the left government will be judged on the basis of its action. “Frankly, I don’t see a danger of authoritarianism lurking in this part of the world. What I fear more is that our rulers have not learned anything from their past mistakes.”