Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML), which stands as the second largest political party through the Constituent Assembly II elections this year, is engaged in an intensive process of choosing the next party leadership through the ongoing Ninth Party Convention in Kathmandu. Jhalanath Khanal, the current UML Chair, has been adopting strategic silence during the whole process of intra-party and public discourses regarding who the next party head will be. While UML party workers appear to have been extremely divided as to having the next party Chair, the rivalry is reaching a climax within the party. It is understood that strong lobbying for and against is going on among the Party Convention representatives even within the temporary closed camps erected at Bhrikuti Mandap, Kathmandu.
K. P. Sharma Oli and Madhav Kumar Nepal have proposed themselves as the next party Chairperson while the current party Chairperson Jhalanath Khanal is yet to clarify his stance. Only after nomination of the candidates and the actual voting will one be able to officially pronounce the name of the next UML party Chair. However, both Oli and Nepal have claimed each that they would be the next elected head.
K. P. Sharma Oli, who has never become the party head despite his highly influential role in the party for long, has reiterated in his public speeches that it would not be appropriate for Madhav Kumar Nepal to become the party Chairperson again as he has already been in the party head’s position continuously for 15 years. Oli publicly accuses Nepal, “He is trying to confuse party cadres even after already having resigned from the party chief’s position due to the failure of his policy and leadership approved of in the Seventh Party Convention.” Countering this accusation, Nepal has also publicly accused Oli of having gone against the republic by denouncing the Seventh Party Convention that unanimously approved of the republic.
Publicly campaigning for Oli as the next UML Party Chief, Vice-Premier and Home Minister, Bambdev Gautam—also the current UML Vice-Chair—stresses that K. P. Sharma Oli be the next UML Chairperson as he has always been barred from the position before. Gautam sees less credibility in Madhav Kumar Nepal who ruled the party consecutively for 15 years, with a sharp decline of UML role in national politics.
Analysis and Comment
In terms of political essence and character, ordinary people in Nepal generally cannot differentiate between Sushil Koirala and Ram Chandra Poudel of Nepali Congress or between K. P. Oli and Madhav Kumar Nepal of UML or between Puspa Kamal Dahal and Baburam Bhattarai of the Unified Maoist. Their rhetorical communication patterns and presentation styles may differ but their party guidelines have not become as effective as they should have been as to applying democratic principles to public life. The political experiences of the Nepalis since the 1950s clearly prove that political parties have remained subservient to addictive power exercises rather than to public interests. Consequently, the long-disputed border issues have been further exacerbated while education, health services and drinking water have been handed over to anarchic private enterprises, which, indeed, have not internalized any values of corporate social responsibility. This has led people to misperceive democracy as doing anything that benefits individuals at the cost of the public good.
Amidst such public frustrations, it sounds quite natural for ordinary Nepalis—not blind supporters or blind opposers—to expect from the General Convention of any political party a new and visionary leadership that does, without indulging in individual egoism and vendetta, redefine itself in favor of visible public good, possible only through ethical, transparent and public-spirited leadership—a stark lack today.
The ongoing UML convention, like in the general conventions of the Nepali Congress, the Unified Maoist, and other parties, does not appear to have been characterized by intellectual debates as to national strategies to empower people at grassroots levels. Instead, it has been customary for parties to concentrate on the who rather than on the what and the why. As a result, people are compelled to remain uninformed about which parties adopt what economic, social and cultural policies for the overall progress of the Nepali society.
Through the democratic election within the Party Convention framework, UML will choose its next leadership should there be no ‘consensus’ by the time of nomination on Sunday. But will UML representatives also debate and reconstruct the party policies so that ordinary masses, who do not have the power of 3Ms—money, media and muscle—can benefit? Future repercussions of the UML Party Convention will mainly depend on what difference the chosen leadership will bring about to ordinary voters’ lives.