The game of musical chairs on Nepal’s political stage continues. For the second time in weeks, Prime Minister K P Oli has persuaded President Bidya Devi Bhandari to dissolve parliament and call for fresh elections, which will now be held on November 12 and 19. That is, unless the Supreme Court decides to declare the dissolution of parliament as unconstitutional, as it had done in its judgement of February 22 this year.
The current dissolution has been challenged in the court by five political parties, including the Nepali Congress, the Maoist Centre (led by Prachanda), the Janata Samajbadi Party, JSP (the faction led by Madhesi leader Upendra Yadav and former Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai) and several dissidents from Oli’s own UML party. A faction of the JSP led by another Madhesi leader, Mahanta Thakur, has supported Oli in return for being promised seven ministerial berths. Oli has also delivered on the longstanding Madhesi demand to reverse a constitutional provision which denied citizenship to children born of Nepali mothers who had foreign husbands. This directly targeted the Madhesi population, which has close kinship and marital ties across the border with India. Oli had supported this provision saying that its absence would allow Indians to marry Nepali women and have their children become Nepali citizens. While this provision has now been removed through a presidential ordinance, it could well be reversed in future. After all, Nepali political parties dominated by the higher caste Nepalis from the hills, the so-called Paharis, had set aside their political differences to bring about constitutional amendments, overnight, to dilute certain key provisions which reversed the age-old discrimination against the Madhesis and other ethnic groups. The widespread unrest in the Terai adjoining India in 2015 was triggered by this blatant attempt to deny equal rights to the Madhesi population. The current ordinance will make the Madhesis happy, but it could turn out to be a reversible tactical gain if and when Oli is dethroned. Read More…
