UML, Maoist Centre Revive 

With the Supreme Court's decision to nullify the existence of Nepal Communist Party (NCP) led by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, Nepali politics has taken an unexpected turn. The NCP was created through the merger of the erstwhile Communist Party of Nepal -Unified Marxist-Leninist (CPN-UML) and CPN-Maoist Centre in 2018. The Election Commission (EC) Tuesday formally revived UML and Maoist Centre. The EC has also asked the two parties to apply at its office with a proposed name and symbol if they want to unite again. For this, they need to submit the copies of the decisions of the central committee meeting of their respective parties in line with the Act relating to Political Parties, 2073 and Rules 2074.  

The EC has completed necessary legal process to implement the SC decisions in this regard. It has informed the secretariat of federal parliament, all Provincial Assembly Secretariats, and election offices of all districts about the individual status of CPN-UML and NCP -Maoist Centre. Likewise, it dismissed the notice published in the Nepal Gazette on June 6, 2018, regarding the unification of two parties, according to the news report of this daily published the other day. The EC has fulfilled its legal responsibility but at the moment, there is no chance of the merger of the two parties at the moment.  The revival of the UML and Maoist Centre followed a series of internal bickering within the NCP. Their infighting had grown to the extent that PM Oli took the step of dissolving the House of Representatives (HoR). He put blame on his rival comrades for the HoR dissolution. He insisted that the non-cooperation within the party forced him to resort to the unpopular decision.

Though the NCP was not legally divided, its leaders and cadres were split emotionally and were involved in the game of accusation and counter-accusations in the wake of HoR dissolution. The legal, constitutional and political elements have intertwined in a way that the politics turned unstable and chaotic, threatening the newly installed federal system.  On February 23, the SC had reinstated the HoR, bringing the derailed constitution back on track. The day when the HoR commenced in line with SC’s instruction, the apex court decided to invalidate the unification of the two parties, which was a bolt from the blue for the leaders and cadres of the NCP. This compelled them to return to their previous folds.

But the SC’s decision came three years after Rishi Kattel had filed a petition against Oli-Prachanda led NCP stating that he had already registered his party with the same name at the EC. Even if the verdict came late, Kattel has felt that justice has finally prevailed. However, one may question about the delay in giving the verdict. If the SC had settled the dispute on the authenticity of NCP in time, the situation would not have been so messy. Similarly, the SC verdict has made it clear that the EC’s earlier decision to recognise NCP, led by Oli and Prachanda, was legally incorrect. This lapse requires that the constitutional bodies need to be more transparent. They must stick to constitutional accountability so that unnecessary disputes will not undermine their integrity and neutrality.