Political Blunders of Nepalese Leaders

One mistake after another made by the political leaders had been the causes of the political instability in Nepal, and had caused the downfall of those political leaders and the monarchs. Nepalis in general and the poor and the underprivileged in particular had suffered a lot from the political instability and the loss of democracy again and again, and consequently the loss of opportunity of socio-economic development. Nepalis needed to shed their blood for reinstating democracy repeatedly.

Chairman of UCPN-Maoist Prachanda
Chairman of UCPN-Maoist Prachanda and his colleagues had set up a People’s Liberation Army (PLA). They fought against the State for 10 years starting in 1996. Ultimately, they came to the mainstream politics in 2006. The conflict was ended, and peace prevailed. However, the one mistake after another Chairman Prachanda made had lengthened the political transitional period. Chairman Prachanda had contracted to the considerable small size from once the tall political figure.

In April 2008 at the time of the parliament electing a president and a vice president, Chairman Prachanda made a grave mistake not agreeing on the proposal put forward by leader of United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF) Upendra Yadav for electing the candidate of UDMF for the office of vice-president, and of the UCPN-Maoist for the president.

UCPN-Maoist and UDMF had certain common political goals. They could go together to craft a new constitution. Belatedly, they went together but they couldn’t craft a new constitution facing the opposition from the NC and the CPN-UML on the first constituent assembly.

The refusal of Chairman Prachanda to elect the candidate of UDMF for the office of the vice-president pushed the Chairman Yadav to form an alliance with NC, and CPN-UML. These three political parties elected the candidate of the NC Dr Ram Baran Yadav to the first president of Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, and the candidate of UDMF Permananda Jha to the Vice-president defeating both the candidates of UCPN-Maoist in 2008.

The second mistake chairman Prachanda committed was the botched attempt to fire the Chief of Army Staff General Rukmangut Katuwal in 2009. Chairman Prachanda had tried to fire the CoAS Katuwal from the job bypassing the president: the commander-in-chief of the Nepal Army.

NC, CPN-UML and small political parties lobbied President Dr Ram Baran Yadav to stop the attempt of Prime Minster Prachanda to remove General Katuwal from the office, and appoint the man of his choice from among the army men to the office of the CoAS. President Yadav wrote a letter to CoAS Katuwal stating to stay on in the office ignoring the letter of Prime Minster Prachanda.

The third mistake of Prime Minster Prachanda was to quit the office in anger protesting the president interfering in his job. This was exactly what the NC and CPN-UML wanted. They got what they were after thanks to the hasty actions of Chairman Prachanda.

Then, Chairman Prachanda made efforts on building a consensus on crafting a new constitution. He could not build a consensus on federalism, system of governance, judiciary, and the system of elections. Chairman Prachanda could have taken those disputed issues to the CA for discussions for the CA settling them by the two-thirds majority. NC and CPN-UML disagreed on that.

These unwittingly committed mistakes had made Prachanda very difficult to navigate the CA to the right direction for crafting a new constitution. Ultimately, he could not craft a new constitution. He became ready for going to the elections to a new CA. Chairman Prachanda opted for going to the elections to a new CA believing his party and Madhesis winning more than two-thirds majority.

The Vaidhya group in the UCPN-Maoist started distrusting the possibility of the CA crafting a new constitution. Splitting away from the UCPN-Maoist, Vaidhya and his colleagues went back to the CPN-Maoist. Thus, Chairman Prachanda lost a number of his comrade-in-arms in 2012.

The fifth mistakes of Chairman Prachanda was going to the elections to a new CA in November 2013 in the face of the opposition of the CPN-Maoist presided over by Mohan Vaidhya. For election campaigns, Chairman Prachanda took an army helicopter to different destinations for countering the opposition of the Vaidhya Maoist cadres that had obstructed the roads Chairman Prachanda intended to travel to the destinations for election campaigns.

The Vaidhya Maoists did not participate in the elections to a new CA. They wanted to disrupt the elections in general but either they changed their mind or they could not do so. However, they were determined to defeat the candidates of the UCPN-Maoist.

The Vaidhya Maoists were successful to defeat their former comrade-in-rams in the elections to a new CA. Consequently, after the elections held in November 2013, the size of the UCPN-Maoist reduced to the third position from the first position in 2008. It held only 80 slots in the new CA after the election in 2013. It held 240 slots in the first CA. That must be a great satisfaction to the Vaidhya Maoists, as they had given a good lesson to Chairman Prachanda but at the cost of the cause of they fought for. Certainly, the approach the Vaidhya Maoists took could not be the right one if not suicidal for their party and for the country, too. That was a grand mistake of turning over the power to the NC and the CPN-UML.

Chairman of MPRF Upendra Yadav
Chairman of Madhesi People’s Rights Forum (MPRF) Upendra Yadav made the first mistake of leaving the camp of the Maoists after the UCPN-Maoist rejected the candidate of the UDMF for the vice-president. UCPN-Maoist was empathetic to the causes of the Madhesi, ethnic people and underprivileged people.

The second mistake Chairman Yadav made was for forming the alliance with the NC and the CPN-UML only to get the candidate of the UDMF elected for the office of vice-president. Chairman Yadav knew that the NC and the CPN-UML had been deadly against the demands made by the UDMF.

For unknown political reasons, Chairman Upendra Yadav joined the NC and CPN-UML alliance to defeat the candidates of the Maoists for president and vice-president. The NC, CPN-UML and UDMF alliance voted for the candidate of the UDMF for the office of vice-resident. The alliance elected the candidate of the NC for the president in the second round of elections. In the first round most of the Madhesi lawmakers were skeptical of voting for the candidate of NC for president. Electing the candidate of the UDMF to the vice-president did make a dent in meeting the goals of the UDMF.

Apparently, Chairman Yadav did not gain anything getting the candidate of the UDMF elected to the vice-president. However, it caused the downfall of Upendra Yadav from the high political status to a chairman of one of the MPRFs. He was one of the rising Madhesi political leaders.

After electing the candidate of the NC for the president, Chairman Yadav quit the NC, CPN-UML and UDMF alliance, and joined the Maoist government presided over by Prachanda. He held portfolio of the foreign minister in the coalition cabinet presided over by Chairman Prachanda. That was another mistake Chairman Yadav committed.

These unwisely committed mistakes ruined the political career of Chairman Yadav. With the mind distorted with rage, Prime Minster Prachanda quit the office in 2009. Thus, Upendra Yadav lost the job of the deputy prime minister holding the foreign portfolio. Thereafter, MPRF spilt in a number of MPRFs. Several leaders became the chairmen of newly set up MPRFs such as MPRF-Nepal, MPRF-Democratic, MPRF-Loktantric, and so on. Once the tall figure of UDMF, and chairman of MPRF that held 54 slots in the CA, Upendra Yadav became the chairman of the small MPRF-Nepal. Chairman of MPRF-Nepal Upendra Yadav had been grappling with his political career after the elections to a new CA in 2013.

Leader of UCPN-Maoist Dr Baburam Bhattarai
In September 2009, Finance Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai of the government presided over by Prime Minster Prachanda made a mistake of refusing to provide revelers of the Indra Jatra with the money to buy a buffalo, a goat and other items of offerings to different deities in course of celebrating the Indra Jatra in Kathmandu. The revelers protested against the action of the finance minister. After a week of the protest of the revelers, Finance Minster Dr Bhattarai gave in.

Finance Minister Dr Bhattarai must have believed that he could do anything he wanted. However, other political players were in the game of the politics. So, denying the State funding for celebrating the Indra Jatra, Finance Minister Dr Bhattarai made a platform for the opposition political parties such as NC, and CPN-UML to hit the coalition government of the Maoists, Madhesis, and other small parties with protests.

Leader of UCPN-Maoist Gopal Kiranti
Minster for Culture Gopal Kiranti of the Prachanda government by his imprudent actions gave another chance to the opposition parties to discredit the government. Minister Kiranti fired the traditional Indian priests working at the Pashupati temple in Kathmandu, and hired the Nepalese priests to perform the daily work at the temple.

NC leaders vigorously protested against the firing of the Indian priests, and then hiring the Nepalese priests. Leaders such as Ram Chandra Poudel, and Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat of NC marched from the Nayabaneswore at the Convention hall to the Pashupati temple in protest against the firing of the Indian priests and hiring of the Nepalese priests to work at the Pashupati temple.

Obviously, Minster Kiranti had done it with the national interest and to enhance the national pride but the opposition leaders did not care about it. They were for capitalizing the action of the Minister Kiranti. Ultimately, NC leaders opting for the Indian priests won the game.

King Gyanendra
King Gyanendra lost his crown, and he became a common folk in 2008 because he unwisely made one political decision after another. He became a king after Crown Prince Dipendra allegedly gunned down the whole family of King Birendra on June 1, 2001.

Gyanendra said that his ancestors had earned the State of Nepal. With this statement, he implied that Nepal was his hereditary property. This wrong notion led him to grab the power firing the elected Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Dueba. That was his first mistake.

The second mistake he made was he attempted to retrieve the political situation his father King Mahendra created in 1960s. He appointed the same man called Tulsi Giri his father appointed in 1960, and another old man called Kritinidhi Bista to the office of his deputies in 2005. Gyanendra should have known that how the men being out of touch with the politics and administration for more than 40 years could run the State administration in the 21st century.

Gyanendra became a real king instead of the constitutional monarch the constitution of 1990 permitted him in 2005. He scrapped the constitution, as his father Mahendra did in 1960. He wanted to reverse the flow of the history. Gyanendra did not realize that the time was 21st century. Majority of Nepalis were educated. They did not like to be the subjects, as Gyanendra wanted to make them. So, Nepalis had no option but to chase Gyanendra out of the palace.

By the time, the Constituent Assembly declared Nepal a republic, and Gyanendra a commoner in 2008, he became so weak, he sent a man to climb the flagpole at the palace compound to replace the king’s flag with the Nepalese national flag on the night of the Constitution Assembly made him a commoner. A large crowd gathered at the southern gate of the palace and demanded to remove the king’s flag. Nepalis had simply hated to see the remnant of the king.

Gyanendra got 15 days to vacate the palace. On the night of the 15th day, he quietly left the palace for the resort at the Nagarjun forest. Gyanendra begged the government for providing him with the resort for the time he would be making an arrangement for a new building. He said that his son had been living in his residence.

One man called Kamal Thapa had been dreaming to restore the crown of Gyanendra. Speaking to the reporters after the convention of his party called Rastriya Prajatantra-Nepal (RPP-Nepal) in May 2014, newly elected chairman of RPP-Nepal Kamal Thapa declared that he would bring Gyanendra from his current residence in the Nagarjun forest to the Narayanhity palace through the lawful process. Mr. Thapa had a good dream but Gyanendra would hardly believe him. Mr. Thapa also ignored that the Narayanhity palace had been a Narayanhity museum.

King Birendra
King Birendra got what he deserved. He had unwisely held a family gathering at the palace on the last Friday of every month. He neglected the intelligence. He did not update the information on the members of the royal families. Consequently, he did not know what they had been doing.

Consequently, the royal family members including King Birendra got gunned down. The official version of the palace massacre was that Crown Prince Dipendra did it. However, logical thinking people questioned whether the heavily intoxicated crown prince could do the job of killing so many people. Crown Prince Dipendra was heavily drunk, according to the official statement. Another question asked by the logical thinking people was whether Crown Prince Dipendra could dare to drink so much in presence of his father and mother.

As a king, Birendra failed in keeping the track of the intelligence report. He had trusted his brothers, sisters, and relatives. So, he regularly held a family drink and dance party without considering the risk of doing so every time at such precisely and previously set time. Conspirators could easily use such event to do what they did to Birendra and his family.

Girija Prasad Koirala
Girija Prasad Koirala became the second elected prime minister after the general elections held in 1991. His senior brother BP Koirala was the first elected prime minister in 1959. These Koirala brothers were smart guys. They did not listen to others except for the kitchen cabinet members.

First thing what Girija did was to intensify the corruption set by the previous regime. He sold the brand new plane belonging to the state-owned royal Nepal Airlines Corporation. Then, he hired an old plane from the Afghan airlines. Girija collected handsome commissions on both the dealings. Then, he did everything possible to make money for his relatives, friends and his party. That pushed the country back from the rule of law for development.

Then he did everything following the suggestions of the kitchen cabinet. Girija dissolved the parliament, and set the date for holding general elections after six months. The members of the kitchen cabinet had said to him that he had done marvelous job, Nepalese voters would vote for his candidates and him, too en mass. Girija naively believed in them.

Girija faced a humiliating defeat in the general elections in 1994. That was a great blow to Girija. He gave way to the second-generation leader Sher Bahadur Deuba to lead the opposition in the parliament.

Girija projected his colleague Krishna Prasad Bhattarai in the next general elections held in 1998 as the next prime minister to redeem the lost glory of his party and the majority in the parliament. His strategy worked but he did not allow Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai to work for more than a year. He threatened Bhattarai to make a motion of vote of no confidence in the parliament if Prime minister Bhattarai were not to quit voluntarily.

Girija became prime minister again. Soon, he faced the palace massacre. He became the mute spectator of the massacre of the royalties. He became a helpless prime minister. He could not use the State mechanism to investigate the murder case. He gave in everything to Gyanendra.

One of the negative successes of Prime Minister Girija Koirala was rotting the huge State-owned industries such as Bhrikuti paper Mill, cement factory, Hetauda cloth Industry, Nepal Airlines, and many other smaller factories. He did it to shed the State ownership of industries and so on. He could have sell those industries or to liquidate but he opted to rot the State-owned assets.

Ganeshman Singh
None of the NC leaders had reached the pinnacle of power and fame and reputation Ganeshman had reached. Then, he also was called the Father of Democracy in 1990. He became the supreme leader of all political parties in 1990 to lead the people’s movement against the Panchayat system. King Mahendra had introduced the Panchayat system in the early 1960s. His son Birendra had simply continued it in 1970s and 1980s.

Apparently a mighty structure of the Panchayat system crumbled under the feet of Ganeshman when Nepalis marched against it. Ganeshman commanded a peaceful protest against the system in 1990. Ganeshman became the most powerful man in Nepal to the envy of his colleagues. Some people even said that the power shifted from the palace to the Chaksarbari (residence of Ganeshman).

When King Birendra offered him to be the prime minister he said to the king, “From now on, the people will make a prime minister not the king.” Then, he pointed to his colleague Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, and said, “He will be the next prime minister.”

The power slowly and systematically slipped away from the hands of Ganeshman. His colleagues did not want to see him to be the most powerful man. Ultimately, Ganeshman lost the power to Girija.

The grave mistake of Ganeshman was he did not keep the power, and he appropriately did not use it for institutionalizing the democratic institutions. He was a great fighter but he was not obviously a great manipulator of power to keep his colleagues at the right places. So, Ganeshman had to die from frustration.

King Mahendra
Mahendra had a complex about not having formal education. So, he gave his son the best possible education. He wanted to be free from any constitutional provision. He wanted to be the king as his predecessors had been before the Rana took over the power from the Shah king Surendra Vikram.

The Rana hereditary prime ministers became so powerful. By the time Tribhuvan became the king at the age of five, they had locked up King Tribhuvan within the four walls of the so-called palace. The Ranas made a small residence for Tribhuvan rather than a palace in comparison to the palaces the Rana had built for them. King Tribhuvan had been residing at the old Hanumandhoka palace. He shifted to the so-called Narayanhity palace the Ranas built for him. It was for making the Ranas to keep watch on the activities of Tribhuvan.

King Tribhuvan could not do anything without the approval of the Rana prime ministers. So, he could not send his sons to the schools. So, Mahendra did not have the formal education. He knew that his father Tribhuvan was at the mercy of the Ranas.

So, Mahendra had the greed for power. He became the king after the death of his father in 1955. He did not hold the elections to a constituent Assembly his father had proclaimed to hold for crafting a constitution in 1951. Rather he demonstrated that he was the source of the constitution. He held general elections following the constitution he gave to the people.

He became unoccupied after the power went to the elected government. He visited different parts of the country on cars, on horse, and on foot, too depending on the topography of the country. Such a visit made him not only physically fit but also politically.

He took the power from the elected government, and put ban on all political parties, and the civic freedom in December 1960. He unknowingly watering the seed his father King Tribhuvan sowed for the demise of the monarchy not holding the elections to a constituent assembly in early 1950s.

King Mahendra went on nurturing the seed introducing the Panchayat system in 1962. He sat on the top of the system for making an environment conducive to grow the seed into a large plant to kill the monarchy. By the time, he died the plant became a tree.

His son Birendra sat on the big tree comfortably. King Birendra let it grow fast. However, the people’s movement in 1990 cut the tree to a size.

Gyanendra ascended to the throne at the cost of so many lives of the royalties in 2001. Crown Prince Dipendra allegedly shot them dead. King Gyanendra nursed it to grow fully in 2005. Ultimately, the tree became matured in 2006. It killed monarchy in 2008.

King Tribhuvan
King Tribhuvan had been practically a prisoner of the hereditary Rana prime minister since he became a king at the age of five. A Rana of the rank of general kept watch on him all the time in the name of giving Tribhuvan security. Almost at the end of his 50-year life, King Tribhuvan had an opportunity of coming out of the four walls of the palace.

Nepalis had been revolting against the Rana regime. It was sure to fall. When King Tribhuvan became sure that the Rana regime was falling, he took a shelter at the Indian embassy in Kathmandu. He flew to New Delhi, India with all his family members except for the second grandson Gyanendra. Thus, he came out directly against the Rana regime.

At first, the Rana Prime Minister Mohan Shumser declared that King Tribhuvan had abdicated as the king. Prime Minister Mohan crowned four-year old Gyanendra: the grandson of Tribhuvan as the king of Nepal. However, Indian Prime Minster Jawaharlal Nehru rejected Gyanendra as the king.

The first blunder Tribhuvan did was he ignored the NC party that had launched the armed revolution against the Rana regime. Tribhuvan unilaterally negotiated with the Rana regime. Prime Minister Mohan had no choice but to negotiate with King Tribhuvan in New Delhi, India.

King Tribhuvan declared that the hereditary Rana regime was dissolved; and he would hold elections to a constituent assembly for crafting a new constitution; he would form an interim government headed by Rana Prime Minister Mohan Shumser.

However, King Tribhuvan developed the greed for power. So, he did not bother to hold the elections. He consolidated the power in his hands. Thus, he sowed the seed for the fall of the monarchy in 1951.

BP Koirala
BP Koirala was a shrewd politician. He deliberately sent Ganeshman back to Nepal. BP knew that the Ranas would capture him and put him behind bars. That was what BP wanted.

Ganeshman sneaked out of the jail in Kathmandu scaling the jail wall. He successful crossed the Nepalese border. He went to India to join his NC colleagues. BP sent Ganeshman back to Kathmandu only to get arrest. He was back to jail.

Living in exile, Ganeshman would have played an important role in mobilizing resources and forces to fight against the Rana regime. However, BP did not allow him to do so for fear of Ganeshman rising more powerful than other leaders.

The second blunder of BP was to accept the negotiated agreement between King Tribhuvan and Rana Prime Minister Mohan Shumser JBR. Ganeshman and other straightforward leaders objected to the BP accepting the so-called Delhi agreement between the king and the Rana prime minister. The agreement shifted the power from the Rana prime minister to the king.

The third mistake was to allow King Tribhuvan stealing the show of the triumph over the Rana regime in Kathmandu on February 18, 1951. Tribhuvan became the hero of the people’s revolution against the Rana regime. Nepalis shed blood to tear down the Rana regime while Tribhuvan was in the palace enjoying the luxurious life (his life might be less luxurious than the Ranas). BP Koirala and Ganeshman became ordinary Nepalis. Nobody noticed them at the airport. Only Tribhuvan stole all sorts of attention. Tribhuvan became the father of democracy.

The fourth mistake of BP was he did not hold elections to a constituent assembly to craft a new constitution in the early 1950s. He did not give importance to a constitution. He was rather to replace the Rana regime with the rule of his party. That did not happen. BP suffered from not being able to make his political life a success.

The fifth mistake BP made was he pulled out his team of ministers from the Rana-NC-king coalition cabinet in 1951. In doing so, BP anticipated that the interim government presided over by Prime Minister Mohan JBR would fall; the king would make BP the next prime minister.

The Rana prime minister resigned but BP did not get the office of prime minister. King Tribhuvan made the BP’s half brother Matrika Koirala the prime minister. BP Koirala needed to spend time and energy to get back the power.

Then, he made a sixth mistake of accepting the constitution King Mahendra gave. However, BP’s party won the general elections held in 1959 following the Mahendra’s constitution. BP formed a new government. He became the first elected prime minister. His government became synonymous with corruption within one and a half years.

King Mahendra took over the power from the overwhelmingly elected government on December 15, 1960. BP and Ganeshman went to jail. Mahendra did not face much opposition from the NC cadres not to mention the people. The corruption had killed the first elected government. Mahendra killed democracy. Killing democracy, King Mahendra nurtured the seed of killing the monarchy his father Tribhuvan had sowed in 1951 not holding the elections to a constituent assembly for crafting a new constitution.

BP and Ganeshman and many NC leaders and cadres also spent almost seven years in jail. Believing the NC had almost dead, the then government released BP and Ganeshman in 1968. They went to the self-exile in India. The then Indian government honored BP and Ganeshman as leaders of the NC Democratic Party, and gave the benefits of being in India.

Then, came a state of emergency Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed in India. BP rallied behind Indian socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan opposing a state of emergency. Indira Gandhi gave BP and Ganeshman an option of staying in the Indian jail or going back to Nepal.

BP and Ganeshman came back to Nepal in 1976. BP said that Ganeshman and he came back to Nepal in reconciliation with the king. At that time, Mahendra had been already died. Birendra was on the throne.

BP said that Mahendra and he were conjoined at the neck. BP and Mahendra shared a common neck. However, Mahendra cut off BP in 1960. BP did not realize it. He continued to dream that his neck was with the king’s neck. In other words BP was part of the king.

Nepalis students rose against the killing of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan in April 1979. The police clashed with the students in Kathmandu. Then, the students turned against the police, and ultimately against the regime presided over by King Birendra.

In order to save his crown and his regime called Panchayat, King Birendra announced a referendum on choosing between the multi-party system and the improved Panchayat system meant directly electing the parliament.

The referendum was held in 1980. The government took unusually long time to bring the ballot boxes from different areas to the district headquarters for counting the votes. At the same time, the government consulted with the astrologers to find out which party would win the referendum.

However, BP remained a mute spectator of the government playing a drama to declare the improved Panchayat declare the winners. The government did so. BP accepted the results of the referendum. He did it right accepting the results of referendum. However, he should have prevented the government taking so much of time for counting the votes. The delay in vote counting made the Panchayat a winner in the referendum.

BP had always feeling that he needed to go along with the monarchy to counter the rise of communists no matter what the monarchy did. He might be right but he helped the monarchy in staying on in power rather than recovering democracy.

The consequences of all these blunders of political leaders in general and BP in particular had been colossal loss to the country. The political instability continued. Nepalis lost the opportunity of making progress in socio-economic development. Nepalese economy stagnated. Nepalis lost the political freedom again and again. Many Nepalis lost their lives in the struggle against the monarchy. Even many innocent Nepalis became the victims of the then Royal Nepal Army. BP and Ganeshman needed to spend seven years in jail, another seven years in exile. BP never recovered the power lost to the king. BP suffered throughout his life.

ENDS

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