NC Mahasamiti meeting

This should have been the fourth Mahasamiti meeting of the Nepali Congress (NC) in the past five years since the party held its general convention in 2005. Unfortunately, it’s the first one, barring the meet that was called just to endorse the unification between NC and NC (D) in September 2007. NC has a terrible track record when it comes to holding the Mahasamiti meeting on time. Since 1990, when the 30-year-long ban on the party was eventually lifted, it has held its exclusive Mahasamiti meeting only twice. Given this dismal history and its President Girija Prasad Koirala’s resistance against holding the meet till the last minute, the fact that the meeting eventually took place is in itself good news.



The grand old party is in crises to say the least and they are manifold: Ideological, organizational and leadership. Ideologically, the party remains disoriented. The party, whose avowed principle is democratic socialism, became the champion of free-market economy while in power. The party organization at the centre and at the districts remains deeply divided – it’s yet to fully fill the fissures of the past divisions but now it also seems to be plagued by new ones. However, it’s not just the division that has left the NC leaders worried. The NC has become one of the most dull and ineffective among the major parties. The cadres lack energy and enthusiasm to reach out to the public and to energize its support base. But the main crisis facing the party at the moment is the leadership issue. Its octogenarian president can no longer contest the party presidency, thanks to his deteriorating health and the term limit set by the party statute. It’s hard to make a case that GPK did any good to his party during his 12-year-long presidency but his potential successors are not better either. Sushil Koirala and Sher Bahadur Deuba, the two likely candidates for the post of party president in the upcoming general convention, lack charisma, exude no confidence and are spent forces.



The challenge before the Mahasamiti meeting at this moment can hardly be overstated. There are four important proposals that have been tabled before the Mahasamiti meeting. We hope it will seriously study each of these proposals and take a wise decision. One of the proposals is about electing all the top post bearers in the party through the general convention. This is a good proposal and the meet should take it. The Mahasamiti should also take a progressive but a balanced decision on restructuring of the state and future model of the constitution. Pandering to ethnic chauvinism and populism would destroy the country but failing to take into account the aspirations of the ethnic groups and provide them the sense of belongingness in the new constitution will be equally dangerous. It’s going to be a hard decision but the NC Mahasamiti must aspire for just that.

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