Nepal will vote on November 20 to elect new representatives to the federal parliament and provincial assemblies. 

In a way, these elections will be more than a periodic democratic exercise. External forces, China and the US in particular, will be highly interested in knowing which party forms the government in Kathmandu for another five years.

It would be a folly to imagine otherwise in the current geopolitical climate, says foreign policy analyst Geja Sharma Wagle. 

As the US and China compete for influence in South Asia, he says the two global powers are “keenly observing” Nepal’s political developments. 

“The foreign policy priorities of the new government will directly impact them,” Wagle adds. 

The effects of US-China tensions have already manifested in Nepal’s national politics, as the political parties are divided on issues where Beijing and the West do not see eye to eye. 

Most recently, two former communist prime ministers Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Jhala Nath Khanal deplored US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit.

Earlier, communist forces, including those in the ruling coalition, had objected to the government’s position on the Russia-Ukraine war. They criticized the Nepali Congress-led government for deviating from Nepal’s non-alignment policy and taking the American side by condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

The maneuverings of the US and China in Nepal reached the level of open name-calling earlier this year over the America’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Nepal compact. 

It is no secret that both the US and China are trying to pull Nepal into their orbit and each wishes to see a favorable government in Kathmandu. 

Nepali political parties have also left little to the imagination on whose side they stand on. 

“Nepali leaders from across the political spectrum have this tendency of seeking outside blessings,” says political analyst Chandra Dev Bhatta. “Their sycophancy has created space for external forces to influence our internal politics.” 

True, it is up to the Nepali voters to choose their government but you cannot overlook the influence of foreign powers over the electoral process. “The outside forces, for instance, can influence the formation of electoral alliances,” says Bhatta. 

It is clear that China prefers the unification of Nepal’s communist forces as Beijing wants a powerful communist government in Nepal. It had played an instrumental role in uniting two of Nepal’s most prominent left parties, CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Center), post 2017 polls. 

The result of that union was the erstwhile Nepal Communist Party (NCP), the largest communist party in the country’s history, which commanded majority seats in Kathmandu and six of the seven provinces. 

Although the party collapsed within a few years due to infighting, China has still not given up on its communist project in Nepal. If not the party merger, Beijing wants Nepal’s communist parties to forge an electoral alliance at the least.  

During his Nepal visit in the first week of July, Liu Jianchao, head of the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party, met Nepal’s communist party leaders in a bid to encourage them to come together.

The US and its western allies, on the other hand, do not want a pro-Beijing communist government to lead Nepal.  

“The democratic world wants to see a government led by a non-communist party,” says Wagle. 

For the US and by extension the West, the main goal is to counter China’s growing influence in Nepal. They are willing to back the political parties that are committed to implementing the 2015 constitution.

India, which holds considerable sway over Nepal’s internal politics, is wary of China’s growing activism in Kathmandu—or of the Americans, for that matter. 

Over the past few years, India has maintained a low-key approach to Nepal’s internal politics. The government of Narendra Modi in New Delhi is more focused on building party-to-party relations with Nepali forces: it does not want to support one party at the risk of antagonizing another.

India knows that Nepal’s communist parties can easily whip up anti-Indian sentiment among voters. So it is willing to work closely with whichever party comes to Baluwatar. New Delhi will be content so long as the next government in Kathmandu does not lean towards Beijing. 

A New Delhi-based diplomatic source says India has urged Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal not to break the current five-party ruling coalition. Dahal too has assured senior Indian officials that his priority is also the continuation of the coalition.

Bhatta says the extent of external influence in Nepali political parties will be further clarified during the formation of the post-election government. 

“All the powers who have interests in Nepal will try to bring to power the political parties they feel comfortable with,” Bhatta says.