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On April 21, the news of detection of 11 new Covid-19 cases in Nepal added to public unease. They were already struggling to digest the federal government’s untimely decision to amend some important laws. The previous day, the KP Oli-led cabinet had proposed legal changes—swiftly endorsed by President Bidya Devi Bhandari—that made it easier to split political parties. They also made the role of the leader of the main opposition party redundant in the constitutional council, a body tasked with making appointments to vital constitutional bodies. Whatever gloss PM Oli tries to put on these changes, they are unmistakable signs of his desire to cling to positions of power.

If co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal and other senior Nepal Communist Party leaders gang up against him, Oli can now split the ruling party with the support of 40 percent of its federal lawmakers. He can then potentially retain his top positions in the government and the breakaway party—in what will be a classic case of cutting off the nose to spite the face. Nepalis are struggling to understand the need for such legal shenanigans when government attention should have been firmly on the Covid-19 crisis. The hope was that this government, with its near two-thirds support in the national legislature, would serve out its five years and give the country much-needed political stability. But untamed ambitions of individual leaders could yet again upend this hope.

The pair of new ordinances makes us question the ability of the NCP-led government to collectively fight the corona pandemic, and threatens to snuff out any hope of the country’s swift post-pandemic economy recovery. Instead, if and when the corona threat dies down, the country could see a repeat of the kind of mad scramble for power that had become a hallmark of the post-1990 polity. Oli can offer no credible justification for his creeping authoritarianism and for inviting yet another era of instability and uncertainty—and certainly not at this time of national emergency.  

People had overwhelmingly plumped for Oli and his communist coalition in the 2017 elections, rewarding his resolute stand against India during the blockade. How fast has Oli’s star fallen! His calculations that the new amendments will allow him to cement his power could be wrong. Oli seems to have learned little from the self-inflicted wounds of Nepali ruling parties over the past three decades. Moreover, with his latest attempt at power-grab, the near-septuagenarian prime minister has run a bulldozer over democratic norms and done irreparable harm to his party and his country.

With another extension of the Nepal lockdown, to April 27, people’s patience is wearing thin. Humans are just not used to being cooped up in their homes for weeks on end. The first few days and weeks of lockdown, as evidence from around the world suggests, can increase family bonding and prompt reflection about our lives and our careers. It also acts as a sobering reminder that however much humankind has progressed, a freak natural accident can still bring the world to a standstill in a jiffy. But a chance at retrospection and renewal aside, there is only so much you can endure.

What if there is no other option, though? Accept it or not, Nepal has only just started on its corona journey. As testing speeds up, so will the number of confirmed corona positives, and it could be months before Nepal reaches its ‘peak’ cases. And as the number of cases mount, the lockdown will get stricter still. Some places are already being sealed off. In the next few weeks and months, if scientific projections are to be believed, South Asia as a whole will be pummeled by the novel coronavirus. The number of infections and deaths will swell. As ominously, with the national economy on the skids, unemployment and privation will rise, hitting those on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder the hardest. In fact, before the corona wave dies down, the pandemic could completely and forever change our lives.

Preparing for the worst is not the same thing as panicking. The only way a poor country like Nepal can deal with a crisis of this magnitude is to assume the worst and prepare for it. Yes, that will entail hardship for many folks. Countless tough decisions will have to be made. But one thing we as a country cannot do—never mind the rising restlessness—is to assume that we will get through this easily. Even the countries that were far better equipped to handle the crisis have struggled—and how! We should thus be closely watching and learning from international experiences every step of the way. Again, besides checking the spread of the virus, ensuring adequate provisions for those struggling for two meals a day should be the immediate priority. This crisis will test our national resolve. Only perseverance and collective effort will pull us out of it.

A rare bit of good news for Nepal in these otherwise gloomy times: Prime Minister KP Oli seems to be slowly regaining his health. He had been largely bed-ridden following a kidney transplant, his second, at the start of March. In his address to the nation on April 7, he looked much better compared to the bleak photos of him that were coming out earlier. Now, hopefully, he can lead the country’s anti-corona response, and can minimize the sort of blatant mismanagement and shenanigans on the part of top state officials that were on display over the past few weeks. But the recuperating prime minister will have a lot on his plate.

The nationwide lockdown has been extended to April 15. Yet even the extended period may not be enough in halting the spread of the novel coronavirus. Testing for the virus has been widened, as tests are now being carried out at 10 centers across the country. Yet around two hundred tests a day are nearly not enough. The lockdown, however long, will be meaningful only when coupled with widespread testing.

It is important that the prime minister himself takes up the responsibility of importing quality test kits and protective gear for medical personnel. We have already seen how even his most trusted advisors can cheat him in the absence of his direct leadership. There is an even bigger challenge before him on the economy, which is on the verge of a breakdown. Besides many businesses going kaput, joblessness could swiftly rise, compounded by hoards of Nepali migrant workers forced to return from abroad.

The suggestion of some civil society leaders that the government trains its focus on agriculture is thus well placed. Most of our arable rural tracts are barren because of the shortage of manpower. This is an opportunity to modernize our agriculture and divert the unemployed masses into it. No other sector can quickly absorb as many working-age people.

Also, instead of trying to silence the government’s critics, as the prime minister seemingly wanted to do during his address, he should rather be trying to take all sectors of the society into confidence. Most critics will rally around him at this time of crisis if they see he is serious about taming the corona beast. Along with importing the right kits, his priority right now should be devising a social security scheme targeted at daily wage earners and low-income groups. The prime minister’s active leadership is indispensable in this long and treacherous road of containment and recovery the country has embarked on.  

With the head of the government out of the picture because of his poor health, the lapses we see in the country’s response to the snowballing Covid-19 crisis were perhaps to be expected. But they were not inevitable. The convalescing Prime Minister KP Oli would have done his country a world of good had he temporarily transferred executive powers to someone else. He didn’t. This resulted in chaos down the chain of command. Deputy Prime Minister Ishwar Pokhrel was tasked with leading the government coronavirus response. But most of his instructions seem to have fallen on deaf ears. Not that other top government officials have exactly covered themselves in glory either.

In a shocking development, the corona test kits and protective equipment imported from China are reportedly of questionable quality. But this isn’t China’s fault necessarily. It was Nepal that ordered these untested kits; China simply delivered them. The only logical way Nepalis make sense of this is to assume that at least some people made a lot of illegal money in this transaction. There also seems to be zero coordination between the three tiers of the government in dealing with the impending coronavirus epidemic. Money is being doled out right and left, with zero accountability. 

Then there are the Nepali citizens who have been prevented from entering their homeland. Under international law, the country cannot bar its own citizens from coming. But short of reliable quarantine facilities and testing kits, the state also fears its incoming citizens might carry the dreaded coronavirus. To be fair, any government would have had a tough time managing movement through the open border during a crisis like this. Yet the amount of confusion and helplessness on display was unwarranted. Again, there does not seem to be a clear chain of command running from the center down to the grassroots.  

Countries around the world have struggled with the corona epidemic, even those who were supposedly well equipped to deal with it. But one unmistakable lesson is that the most effective response involves close cooperation between different tiers of government and active participation of the private sector. There is also someone in charge of the whole process. Establishing a clear chain of command and constantly communicating the government intent and plans is thus vital. People here are already dying from undiagnosed illnesses. Daily essentials are in short supply. Thousands of Nepalis untested for corona are lined up at the border, ready to enter. Time is of essence.