Intra-party democracy a big question in Nepali Congress
Nepali Congress (NC) Party President Prasad Girija Prasad Koirala has made his daughter Sujata Koirala the deputy prime minister of the country.
Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, talking to mediapersons in Kathmandu, admitted that he took the decision to appoint Ms. Koirala as the deputy prime minister at the personal request of NC President Girija Prasad Koirala.
Meanwhile youth leaders in the NC party have strongly objected to this decision. They have questioned democracy within their party. They issued a statement today saying that their party central committee or an equivalent mechanism has not approved of this personal decision.
Ms. Koirala, who married a German citizen and soon divorced, began her political career at the behest of her father.
Like Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, she was also defeated in the Constituent Assembly elections held on 10 April 2008. Twenty-two parties, most of them having only one seat through the proportional elections, formed a new government after Maoist Chairman and the elected Prime Minister Prachanda resigned due to the parallel rule that President Dr. Ram Barana Yadav created by nullifying the prime minister’s executive power by siding with the then Army Chief Rookmangud Katawal, who defied the elected government.
Current Defence Minister Vidya Bhandari, who was also defeated in the elections, has already defied the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in 2006 between the Maoist rebels and the then Seven Party Alliance (SPA) in 2006.