Designed for systemic dysfunction

No constitution can work if an ethnonational elite is unwilling to give up its privileges.

Premier Sher Bahadur Deuba owes his position to a debatable verdict of the Supreme Court that led to the formation of a desperate coalition of ideologically disparate political parties. When a two-member bench annulled the formation of the Nepal Communist Party and ordered its two constituents—the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre)—to begin their unification afresh if they wished so, Premier Deuba’s party became its indirect beneficiary. It emerged as the nucleus of an alternative government.