Dahal using time-buying tactic

KATHMANDU, April 17: As the intra-party feud over the home ministry intensifies, Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has called a two-day meeting of the party politburo beginning Wednesday as a time-buying tactic.



A meeting of the Maoist top office bearers on Saturday could not resolve the protracted intra-party disputes over the allocation of ministerial portfolios, and decided instead to hold a politburo meeting.[break]



“There is conspiracy against peace and constitution. So we called a meeting of the politburo to take a decision and to defeat the conspiracy. It is not only the issue of allocation of ministries,” said Maoist Vice-chairman Narayankaji Shrestha.



According to party sources, Dahal decided to convene the politburo for at least three reasons.



First, he could not secure the home portfolio for someone from among his aides due to strong opposition from Senior Vice-chairman Mohan Baidya who wants Dev Gurung as home minister. And he could neither concede the portfolio to Gurung, nor could he keep it for his aide Barshaman Pun.



Secondly, Dahal has a quota for only two ministries for his faction, but there are at least three aspirants -- Shakti Basnet, Gopal Kirati and Haribol Gajurel. Party leaders say Dahal is even ready to accept Gurung, a Baidya nominee, as home minister, only in return for three ministries. “The chairman is in fact waiting for an opportune time to take decisions in his favor. Hence another meeting,” says a leader close to Baidya.



And thirdly, the party leaders have been wrangling over the ministry they are not sure to get, and the party has other thorny issues to settle. In fact, the prime minister´s press advisor Surya Thapa says the Maoists will not get the home ministry unless there is tangible progress in the peace process, a major demand of the UML standing committee.



Besides the internal feuds over power-sharing, the party is expected to review its immediate political line of “people´s revolt”. Dahal is caught between the party hard-liners who are for a revolt to capture state power and the moderates who are for promulgating a new constitution through compromises.



“We expect that the chairman would make a concrete proposal to conclude the peace process and constitution drafting as we don´t have any other option now,” says a senior leader close to Bhattarai.



But the hardliners are likely to react strongly if Dahal proposes the review of the party´s line to revolt.



Though the constitution-drafting deadline is just a month away, the party has not yet charted out its political programs. Dahal is hard-pressed by the hard-liners to bring out programs for a revolt, while the moderates want to make compromises with other parties to promulgate a new constitution.



The repeated transferring of the disputed issues from committees to committees means deepening internal crisis in the party and a state of indecisiveness.



“It means ideological and disciplinary deviations of the party leaders; it means we are no longer following the party´s norms and values and personality-centric tendency has become dominant,” says Maoist politburo member Narayan Sharma.

Related story

Farmers in Kaski prefer using hand tractors