Electoral outcome and party leadership are closely tied in mature parliamentary democracies. If the party does well, the credit goes largely to the leader. If it does not, the leader assumes full responsibility and resigns. Perhaps there could be no better example of this than the case of the otherwise powerful British Prime Minister David Cameron resigning as the leader of the ruling Conservative Party after the Britons voted to leave the European Union (Cameron had made a strong pitch for staying.) In fact tradition dictates that among the two main British parties, the leader of the one that fares poorly in vital elections resigns. Not so in Nepal. It is hard to think of a single instance whereby the leader of Nepali Congress or the erstwhile CPN-UML, the country’s two main parties until recently, resigned after an electoral debacle. Most recently, Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba refused to accept responsibil­ity for his party’s poor showing in the three tiers of elections in 2017, and sought to hang on through means fair and foul. This, coupled with the party’s failure as the main opposition and Deuba’s rule-by-fiat, has bolstered those in the party clamoring for change.

Those in the party calling on Deuba to make amends have gained a new voice ahead of the crucial meeting of NC Mahasamiti—the party’s second-most important deci­sion-making body after the national convention—slated for the end of November. President Deuba is said to have repeat­edly postponed the meeting as he feared his rivals would use the body to ‘gang up’ against him. He seems to have relented only after immense pressure from the party rank and file.

Deuba does not want to relinquish the top post. But at the next national convention in 2020 he is likely to get a tough competition from one of the scions of the powerful Koirala family, which has controlled the party for most of past 70 years. Also in the fray for party leadership will be veteran leaders like Ram Chandra Poudel and Krishna Prasad Sitaula. As much as Deuba hates having to step down—ever—the day of reckoning seems to be getting closer. In the meantime, at the upcoming Mahasamiti meet, he will try to tweak the party statute to further centralize decision-making. The goal is to amass enough pork to pass around for his future bid for another term as party president o