POLITICS-NEPAL: Coalition Government Could Still Fall Apart

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Analysis - Suman Pradhan

KATHMANDU, Feb 23 1998 (IPS) - The five month old centre-right coalition government survived a crucial no-trust vote in parliament last week, but Nepal’s Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa cannot guarantee political stability, say political analysts.

Fresh setbacks are predicted in the next few months when the prime minister must hand over power to one of his coalition partners as part of a bizarre power sharing arrangement that was negotiated only for the purpose of forming a government.

The change in leadership will spark another round of political instability, asserts eminent political scientist Prof. Lok Raj Baral of Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan University. “The new coalition will have to seek a vote of confidence in Parliament. That could lead to a new game of political one-upmanship,” he said.

Last Friday, Prime Minister Thapa won the no-trust motion in Parliament by a slim majority of three votes against the 100 mustered by the opposition communists. Nepal’s lower house of Parliament has 205 members.

Governments have changed with alarming regularity in Nepal since 1990 when democratic elections were held for the first time after decades. No government has lasted its full term, and four government have been sworn in over the last three years alone.

With no party winning a majority in the last general election in 1994, successive governments have been new opportunistic alliances that have not been able to hold together. Preoccupied with the power tussles, governments have not had the time to ensure that the majority of Nepal’s 22 million people who are poor share in the benefits of democracy.

“People are fed up with the games politicians play to hang on to power.” comments political scientist Prof. Tribhuvan Nath Jaiswal. “They want politicians and government to concentrate on jobs, development and economic upliftment. But politicians seem oblivious to all this.”

The Thapa-led coalition government has been plunged in crisis since early January when the prime minister advised the constitutional monarch, King Birendra, to disband Parliament and order fresh elections.

Within hours, Nepal’s opposition communists and rivals within the prime minister’s own rightist Rashtriya Prajatantra Party had counter-petitioned the king, urging him to summon a special parliamentary session to vote out the Thapa government.

The vote of confidence on Feb. 20, more than a month later, went in Prime Minister Thapa’s favour. But the ruling coalition could still fall apart over an internal agreement between Thapa and the Nepali Congress (NC) to share power.

The two parties had agreed to take it in turns to head the coalition government until the next general election in November 1999. NC leader Girija Prasad Koirala, a former prime minister, staked his claim soon after the no-confidence vote was won.

“We are confident that Prime Minister Thapa will carry out the agreement,” said his spokesman Taranath Ranabhat last Saturday. “There will be no delay in the transfer of power (from Thapa to Koirala).”

But given the murky political power games that go on all the time in Nepal, it is uncertain if that transfer of power will ever occur. Even if it does, whether it will be a smooth affair is another question altogether.

The prime minister himself has done little to dispel doubts. He issued ambiguous statements over the weekend in a bid to shore up his bargaining position with the NC. “A prime minister who has the support of the House of Representatives need not resign,” he said. “The Nepali Congress has already been participating in full in this government.”

NC circles are considering asking the prime minister for an unequivocal statement reaffirming his commitment to Koirala.

Given the numbers in Parliament, the prime minister has no other option because his party, after a recent split, commands only 11 votes in the 205-seat Lower House. The NC has a strength of 89 members. The third coalition partner, Nepal Sadbhavana Party, provides the remaining number of seats.

Political analysts say the government would crumble if just one lawmaker bolts out of the ruling coalition. In fact, the threat of defections is real for all Nepal’s main political parties.

Over the last month, Prime Minister Thapa’s party has officially split down the middle. The NC is also rocked by divisions between its majority faction, led by Koirala, and the

minority led by former party president Krishna Prasad Bhattarai.

But so far the most potent problems afflict the opposition Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist), Nepal’s largest party in parliament. The party is on the verge of breakup with a minority faction preparing to form a new party. Such occurrences will certainly give rise to realignments among political parties on the national stage, political observers say.

“Because democracy here is still in an early stage, parties are undergoing profound changes in their outlook,” explains Prof. Jaiswal. “Let us hope that this churning will lead to future stable governments. Otherwise, Nepal will have to live with instability for a long time.”