The Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government has completed its 100 days in office. While the government has come up with a long-list of accomplishments, experts and observers rate its performance as dismal. In this context, Kamal Dev Bhattarai  of ApEx sat down with  Bimalendra Nidhi, senior leader of Nepali Congress, a key coalition partner, to talk about the performance of the government, future of the coalition government, and its foreign policy orientation. Excerpts: How do you assess the performance of this government in its first 100 days? I have taken the government's 100-day performance in a normal and comfortable way. While talking about a government’s performance, we have to consider the popular mandate given through elections, as it determines the strength of parties represented in Parliament. This strength has a bearing on the formation of a government. At this point, government formation is an important development. This does not mean that the government has failed to perform well. Usually, experts review the performance of the government after the completion of its 100 days, but we have to accept the reality that we had to invest our time and energy to form the government itself. So, the government’s performance should be viewed from this perspective.

There are already questions regarding the future of this coalition. Do you think it will sustain for a full-five-year term?

This coalition will remain intact for a full five-year term. There will be changes in the government leadership but the parliament won’t be dissolved before it completes its full term. In our context, we have to accept a slightly different definition of political stability. Parliamentary stability should be the yardstick of political stability, instead of government’s. This is because previously, there was the provision of parliament dissolution before its full term, and such a provision still exists in many countries. But we have adopted a new provision that doesn’t allow the prime minister to dissolve the parliament. I want to assure everyone that this parliament will remain for five years. The current coalition will also remain intact. It’s only that the country will get three prime ministers in the next five years. Incumbent Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal will step down after 2.5 years to hand over the reins to CPN (Unified Socialist) Chairman Madhav Kumar Nepal, who will in turn cede the office to Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba. The Deuba government will be in charge when the country heads for next general elections. This is a tentative agreement among coalition partners. What about the foreign policy priorities of this coalition government? Nepal’s foreign policy is not constant because there has always been some disparities and mistakes when a new government is formed. I want to say firmly that Nepal has two neighbors—India and China—and our relationship with India is a special one due to various factors such as language, culture, civilizational linkages, and open borders. These factors make our relationship with India entirely different than that of China. If we compare our relationship with two neighbors, it is obvious, we have to give more importance to India. Why is the relationship with India different from that of China? India has adopted “neighborhood first” policy but what does it really entail?  India should demonstrate this policy in practice. I do not know how this policy was coined but let me put some opinion on how neighbors are taken in our society. In Nepali, neighbor means ‘chhimeki’. With chhimeki, we have both bitter and cordial relationships but we do not take this bitter relationship to the point of enmity.  Relationships among chhimeki are not only about formal meetings and engagements. Informal engagement is equally important, and we engage in personal-level relationships with our chhimeki. On the one hand, there will be a respectful and formal relationship, on the other an informal, open and loose network. But our relationship with neighbors is going to become like a regimented barracks, which is not helpful for both countries. Indian leaders and people have always stood by our side in all our democratic movements. Similarly, Nepali leaders have supported the independence movement of India. We should not take open and frank discussions between Nepal and India as a dispute, or interference in internal affairs. When it comes to our relationship with China, there are cultural, linguistic and other disparities. China is a communist country, Nepal is a democratic country, and so is India. Cordial ties between two democracies are normal, just as China maintains good ties with other communist countries of the world. But since Nepal is not a communist country and is unlikely to become one, China should not conduct its foreign policy with the motive of bringing a communist regime in Kathmandu. It seems that India and China are competing to exert their influence in Kathmandu. What is your view on this?   There should not be competition between India and China in Kathmandu. Veteran Nepali Congress leaders Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, Ganesh Man Singh and Mahendra Naryan Nidhi used to say, “Chinese leaders are ready to provide us economic and other assistance but that is always lesser than what India is providing us.” There was a time when Chinese leaders used to advise our leaders to maintain a cordial relationship with India. I have personally experienced the spirit of such goodwill from senior Chinese leaders during my trip to Beijing in the past. They used to advise us to give due priority to our relationship with India. I can only hope that the Chinese leaders maintain that same spirit of friendship and cordiality today.