With generous support from political parties and individual lawmakers across the board, a nascent ruling coalition under Pushpa Kamal Dahal won a crucial vote of confidence in the House of Representatives with an unprecedented majority, securing 268 votes in the 275-strong parliament that had 270 members present on the important day. Paradoxically, the victory in the parliament with a fractured mandate appears to have unseated the 78-member-strong CPN (UML) from its position of the kingmaker, with the largest party, the Nepali Congress, throwing its weight behind the coalition under the CPN (Maoist Center), which has 32 members in the parliament. Out of 89 NC lawmakers, 85 voted for the coalition, while one NC member could not vote as he had a court case pending against him. Lawmakers Kishor Singh Rathaur, Manoram Sherchan and Ambika Basnet were absent. Pashupati Shumsher Rana JBR, lawmaker from the Rastriya Prajatantra Party, could not vote as he was chairing the session.

The NC supporting the ruling coalition means the bargaining power of the Maoist party will increase and Dahal will no longer be at the mercy of the second largest party in the parliament to remain in power.

This lifeline will be crucial for Dahal and co if the UML-Maoist alliance comes under strain and headwinds begin to blow, especially after 2.5 years, the Constitution-set embargo for a change of guard. In such a case, if push comes to shove, Dahal will have a lifeline ready. Anyway, with Rastriya Swatantra Party (20 seats), Rastriya Prajatantra Party (14), Janata Samajvadi Party (12), CPN-Unified Socialist (10), Janamat Party (10), Loktantrik Samajvadi Party (4), Nagarik Unmukti Party (3) and five independents, a good number of political equations are possible even if Nepal Workers’ and Peasants’ Party and Rastriya Janamorcha—one seat each—choose to remain firmly in the opposition. After the euphoria over this victory is over, the Dahal-led government would do well to look back a little bit. Let’s just cite a few examples from Nepal’s contemporary history. In 2018, the KP Oli-led ruling coalition had a two-third majority in the parliament. However, it came crashing down barely three years later, thanks mainly to rifts within. In the 90’s, the NC got majority to form the government twice. But these governments became castles in the wind with the party riven by internal feuds. In the general election held after the establishment of a multiparty democratic polity in 1958, the BP Koirala government (NC) garnered a two-third majority in the parliament. But the government did not last long. Feuds within the party had a role in this collapse, apart from the then monarch’s ambitions. None of the majority governments formed in a space of six decades or so have survived full term. In such a context, the Dahal government would do well to tread with caution.