Let’s admit it; our collective exasperation also carries a dose of shared anticipation. It’s as if quirky Nepali politics has acquired a sensibleness of its own that does not cease to astonish our leaders and the led alike.
The narrative that the Supreme Court order represented a decisive – and even irretrievable – blow to Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli could barely last a week. Today’s prevailing line appears to be that, while not handing our premier an outright victory, the justices ended up cementing his position, as far as where he stood just before issuing the dissolution order.
The conventional wisdom, in a nutshell, appears to be that everything now depends on a formal split in the ruling Nepal Communist Party.
Ordinarily, such an unabashed declarative could have been easily cast aside as the fulmination of a conspiracy theorist or agent provocateur. But, as Nepali Netbook readers are often reminded here, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get you.
The political equivalent of that adage is that leaders have come to rely on the crystallization of any of the competing theories that may be in fashion at any given time. They still have to play the part of the primary drivers of our irremediable era of hope and change. Privately, they, too, want those alien forces who instigated them to break ‘old Nepal’ to own it.
Once you’ve figured that out, a lot more becomes clear. You can stop wondering how Oli rivals who today insist they always knew how nasty the prime minister is could once partner with him. The Nepali Congress’ nauseating eagerness/indifference on leading/joining a new government becomes more comprehensible. (As does party president Sher Bahadur Deuba’s affirmation that – as leader of the opposition – he is the prime minister in waiting, but isn’t actually lining up for the job.)
Heck, it even starts to make sense when a prime minister accused of taking a lurch to the extreme right suddenly pallies up with the most radical leftist force on our spectrum. (And rival Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ taking credit for an agreement signed by a government he castigates.)
Maybe our leaders are waiting for specific guidance from their respective external patrons, you might insist. Maybe. But let’s not forget the power of Nepali politics to confound foreigners. A prime ministerial aspirant to promises to lead a government India would feel ‘comfortable’ doesn’t exactly burnish credentials in New Delhi. The foreign powers that matter don’t seem to be able to think together or alone, much less act.
The proverbial snake, frog and scorpion abroad have to come out of this trance before our leaders can even sense a smidgen of succor.
Doing the same thing repeatedly to expect a different result may be a sign of insanity among our leaders, Baburam Bhattarai recently advised us, advancing that well-worn adage. For all the toil and turmoil of the last decade and a half, the people at least can try thinking up all possible equations ahead.
After all, who says you can’t apply logical reasoning to even the most ostensibly twisted logic?
