The Indian Express
February 11, 2014
Koirala’s election ends weeks of confusion. He must focus on restoring stability, delivering the constitution. The election of Sushil Koirala as the prime minister of Nepal on Monday ended nearly three months of political confusion and tension in the Himalayan republic.
The inability of the major political parties to form a government, after the successful polls on November 19, 2013, to elect a new Constituent Assembly (CA), was preceded by the long wait for the House to convene. The six-point agreement between the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) to end the deadlock has prevented Nepal’s slide into fresh political turmoil.
With the support of the UML, Koirala will enjoy a simple majority and it is now his responsibility to promulgate the new constitution within a year. Between the election to the last CA in April 2008 and now, Nepal has had six prime ministers — from three parties and the chief justice. The November 19 polls were held in a constitutional vacuum. The NC and UML deserve credit for steering the political process over the immediate hurdles following the election, chief among which were the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist’s (UCPN-M) initial rejection of the results that handed it a major defeat and then its refusal to join the new CA.
Thanks to the NC and UML leaderships taking ownership of the situation, that crisis was resolved and a deal struck to make the Maoists climb down from their maximalist position.
With a new prime minister in office, efforts must be renewed to arrest Nepal’s political slide. But the task before Koirala is enormous. His party would do well to talk to the UCPN-M and smaller parties to bring them into government. Nepal’s scars — of the decade-long insurgency and misgovernance since 2008 — will take a long time to heal. Building consensus on important matters, such as constitution-writing, as the coalition has agreed to do, might be the safest path.
In fact, Koirala could extend the invite to the breakaway Communist Party of Nepal (CPN-M), which had boycotted the polls and threatened violence. Having earlier helped bring Maoists into the mainstream, India should encourage the new government to restore stability.
