No PM in sight

Parliament, as expected, has failed to elect a new prime minister as the UCPN-M and NC candidates could not garner 300 votes and the UML withdrew its candidate before the voting. This will further erode the credibility of our politicians and deepen the corrosive cynicism that has gripped our society. The common perception until this failed election was that politicians were a self-serving bunch, unable to think of or work for the broader interest of the people and the nation. Now the people are seeing that politics has become so hopeless the politicians can’t even elect a prime minister.



Speaker Subas Nemwang, in consultation with the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of parliament, has set Friday, July 23, as the date for a second round of voting. It’s too early to predict that parliament will in fact elect the thirty-fourth prime minister of Nepal on that day. The parties are still too divided to form a winning alliance. Since Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and NC leader Ram Chandra Poudel are the only two candidates remaining, UML and the Madhesi parties now hold the key to electing the new prime minister.



The UML remains too divided to support either candidate. Party Chairman Jhala Nath Khanal’s camp may be gravitating toward supporting Maoist Chairman Dahal, but the other camp, which is close to Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and senior leader K P Sharma Oli and holds a majority in the party’s central committee, would be dead against that. The Nepal-Oli camp favors keeping the current alliance alive and electing NC leader Poudel, something the Khanal camp is likely to oppose vehemently. Khanal’s supporters argue that there is no point voting for a majority government led by Poudel since the UML withdrew the candidacy of its own chairman on the ground that it did not garner at least a two-thirds majority in parliament.



If the Madhesi leaders vote for Dahal, he can easily attain the magical number of 300, but they are not very likely to do so. And if they vote for Poudel in the second round balloting, which is a possibility, he will still not be anywhere close to getting 300 votes unless the UML also decides to vote for him. So the probable scenario is that even a third round of vote, if there is one on Friday, is unlikely to give the country a new prime minister. That’s a dreadful prospect and the common people’s patience with politicians may finally run out. The politicians may seek comfort in blaming others, but they must realize that in the public eye each one of them will have failed. The politicians must now do something radically different to redeem themselves. Or else they will not be able to defend the republic and democracy.

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