Nepal’s left’s theatre of survival

The recent 75th birth anniversary of the late Madan Bhandari, held at Kathmandu's Rastriya Sabha Griha Hall, brought together four former prime ministers and a former president. Ostensibly an act of remembrance for the architect of People's Multiparty Democracy, the event served as a platform for contemporary communist leaders to engage in discussions about unification, a recurring theme fraught with ambiguity and ideological lightness.

The specter of the 2018 merger between the CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Centre) looms large over these discussions. Hailed as a "historical necessity" promising stability and transformation, the unified Nepal Communist Party (NCP) quickly faltered. A key provision for power-sharing between leaders KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal collapsed when Oli dissolved parliament rather than relinquish the prime ministership. The Supreme Court's subsequent nullification of the merger on a technicality in March 2021 led to the party's dissolution and a renewed fragmentation of the communist movement.

This cycle of unification and division has left Nepal's communist politics in a state of perpetual flux. Following the NCP's collapse, former allies Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhalanath Khanal split from UML to form the CPN (Unified Socialist). The ensuing period has been marked by a predictable pattern of coalition governments led by Oli, Dahal, and Sher Bahadur Deuba, none of whom have governed effectively. Their focus on political survival has coincided with a decline in state credibility and a significant exodus of young people seeking opportunities abroad.