Breaking with conventions

This spontaneous in-party challenge to Oli’s one-man show is something to be celebrated.

The 10th CPN-UML general convention in Sauraha, Chitwan in November 2021 cemented KP Sharma Oli’s hold on the party machinery. At the time, the old UML party had just been revived following the breakdown of the Nepal Communist Party that he co-chaired with Pushpa Kamal Dahal. This was followed by the exit from the UML of senior leaders and former prime ministers Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhalanath Khanal. There was now no one to check Oli’s growing ambition and power in the country’s largest communist party. So, before being reelected party chairman at the 10th general convention, he handpicked the UML office-bearers and central committee members. Yes, there were a few voices of opposition, for instance from the likes of Bhim Rawal and Ghanashyam Bhusal. They had declared their candidacies for vital posts (Rawal, as a rebel candidate, was in fact standing against Oli for the post of party chair.) Oli ordered the convention delegates not to vote for them. That is exactly what happened. This was a depressing outcome for a party which, post-1990, practised the most vibrant internal democracy among the country’s main democratic forces.