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The prolonged impasse over the election of a new speaker of the federal lower house, and deputy speaker Shiva Maya Tumbahamphe’s refusal to step down, give one overarching message: the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) is still very much a divided house, nearly 20 months after the formal unity of the country’s two largest communist forces. Popular media has backed Tumbahamphe’s resolute stand against the ‘party patriarchy’ that wants her to go. But she might have resigned by now without the covert backing of both President Bidya Bhandari and PM KP Oli.

Party co-chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has been vehement about the need to remove Tumbahamphe and start a new process for the election of new speaker and deputy speaker. His co-chair, Oli, wants to ensure the speaker’s post does not go to the former Maoist faction. The expelled ex-speaker Krishna Bahadur Mahara was from the faction, and Dahal insists Agni Sapkota, another old Maoist stalwart, should replace Mahara. As the speaker and deputy speaker cannot come from the same party, by asking Tumbahamphe to hang on, Oli is putting pressure on Dahal and ex-Maoists to give up speakership in favor of Subhas Nembang, Oli’s own pick as the speaker.

There is also a geopolitical twist to the speakership saga. By preventing another Maoist from becoming the speaker, PM Oli wants to guarantee a smooth passage of the American MCC compact in the parliament. Former speaker Mahara had famously declined the tabling and voting on the MCC bill. The ex-Maoists suspect the MCC is a part of the American ‘military’ Indo-Pacific Strategy brought with the sole intent of countering China’s rise in Nepal. But as much as he is beholden to China, PM Oli, as government head, also wants to safeguard old relations with the US.  

This disturbed dynamics of a single party have left Nepal without a speaker for three months. The House has been repeatedly obstructed. In the past 30 years of democratic exercise, the country has had to pay dearly for past feuds among ruling parties, contributing to the collapse of successive governments and creating perpetual instability. The political parties seem to have learnt little. The ruling party should be mindful. The short-sightedness of its leaders could open up new fissures in the NCP and push the country into another vortex of instability and corrosive big-power rivalry.  

The federal government has been loath to devolve power and resources to the provinces and local bodies, in a clear violation of the spirit of federalism. Of course, the picture is nuanced. Members of the provincial assemblies, for instance, are constantly looking for guidance from the center, as they struggle to settle even petty provincial agendas. But, again, this is to be expected as they don’t feel empowered enough to make crucial decisions like deciding on the name and capital city of their province.

A curious spectacle is now unfolding over the naming of Province 3 and the selection of its capital. The nine-member Nepal Communist Party Secretariat has issued a diktat to its Province 3 assembly members that the province should be named ‘Bagmati’ and its temporary capital of Hetauda should be made permanent. The constitution clearly states that the twin duties fall on the provincial assembly. Yet when members of the NCP parliamentary party in Province 3 could not come to a consensus, they brought the issue before the party secretariat. The assembly members who were all along for Hetauda as the permanent capital supported the secretariat directive, while those pitching for alternative places decried the ‘interference’.

As the NCP has 80 seats in the 110-member Province 3 Assembly, the parliamentary party had enough votes to push through its recommendations. And yet they were bitterly divided. In this situation of a deadlock, it may seem natural for them to look up to their political masters for guidance. Yet the NCP secretariat offered not so much its guidance as settle the matter altogether. Federalism works only when the provinces and local bodies feel adequately empowered to take important decisions and settle differences on their own.

If top party leaders were serious about federalism, they would have better trained representatives of the provincial and local governments to expect and handle such problems on their own. There would have been greater debate on the suitability of certain provincial names and capitals. The kind of administrative federalism that the central-level leaders seem keen on, with decision-making still centralized in Kathmandu, is token federalism. Some friction was to be expected in the implementation of federalism. Our political leaders’ fecklessness has greatly increased that friction.

A defining characteristic of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP)-led government is its intolerance of criticism. Those in the federal government, which enjoys a near two-thirds majority in the parliament, apparently believe all their critics are enemies who need to be silenced. This comes from a deep-seated fear of having to confront and deal with their many shortcomings. So it is intent on stifling dissent and getting the media to strictly adhere to its ad hoc limits.

A twin set of bills now in the federal legislature would make it a crime to post any content critical of the federal government on social media. Just for expressing their opinion online, a person may be fined between 0.5-1.5 million rupees or be jailed for 5-15 years. Given the vague incriminating terminologies like ‘defamation’ and ‘bullying’, just about any critical post online could be deemed problematic. As troubling are the provisions that allow the National Investigation Department, the state intelligence agency, to snoop on a person or organization under its investigation, including by looking at their phone and online conversations.

There has been no justifiable explanation for why more of such draconian laws are needed, when existing laws are enough to monitor and investigate suspected activities online. As controversially, another bill aimed at curtailing press freedom had been introduced earlier in the year.

So are we headed toward a totalitarian state? We cannot draw that conclusion yet. In India, despite the BJP regime’s best efforts to buy influence and cow the media, dissenting voices are still strong and continue to make the government jittery. These days, even one-party China struggles to keep its citizens away from ‘unwanted’ online content. Besides, Nepal’s democratic space has been continuously expanding since the 1990 political change, and even an all-powerful communist government will struggle to take the country back to the days of the Panchayat surveillance state. Nor is a communist dictatorship possible here.

But if recent measures are not enough to completely reverse Nepal’s democratic gains, they could act as roadblocks in the country’s progress toward a fully democratic state. If, tomorrow, the Nepali Congress gets to lead the government, it would also have every incentive to continue these troublesome laws to stifle criticism against it and mute opposition voices. The NCP is taking the country down a dangerous path. A vigorous defense of free speech from across the social and political spectra is the need of the hour.

The writing had long been on the wall for the Samajbadi Party, the 17-seat outfit in the federal lower house that helped KP Oli secure a resounding two-thirds ruling majority. Ever since Upendra Yadav’s Federal Socialist Forum, Nepal united with Baburam Bhattarai-led Naya Shakti back in May, Bhattarai had been pestering Yadav, who was then a deputy prime minister and minister of health, to quit the government and hit the streets. Bhattarai reckoned the Oli government had no intent of amending the constitution and the Samajbadi Party would only squander its political capital in Tarai-Madhes by hanging on.

But with the next set of elections nearly four years away, Yadav calculated, he had more to lose than gain by quitting the government. Elections are expensive and there could be no better way to boost the Samajbadi’s electoral war chest than by sticking with Oli. Yet it increasingly appeared as if Oli was fed up with the insubordinate Yadav and wanted him out. The clearest hint of this was the change last month of Yadav’s ministerial portfolio from health to law without his knowledge. This was ignominy, and yet the veteran Madhesi politician swallowed it.

But it got all too much when the ruling NCP forged an alliance with the 16-seat Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJPN), the Samajbadi’s arch-rival in Madhes, for seat distribution in the National Assembly, the federal upper house. The sudden alliance spooked Yadav, for not only could it clear the way for RJPN’s entry into the federal government, but also potentially destabilize the Samajbadi-RJPN ruling coalition in Province 2. There was no way a politician as astute as Yadav could have missed the symbolism of a red carpet welcome of his rival party into the federal government.

Perhaps there is already a secret deal between the NCP and the RJPN to facilitate the latter’s entry into the federal government. Otherwise, it would have been risky for the NCP to lose Samajbadi’s support just when rumors swirled about the likely merger of two rival Madhesi parties. With Madhesi parties consolidating, the NCP could have had to pay electorally in Province 2. But with elections still three years away, you wouldn’t bet against the RJPN joining the federal government. What about constitutional amendment then? No one seriously believes it will happen any time soon, whoever is or is not in the government