The counting of votes for Sunday’s national and provincial elections is continuing with no clear indication yet of which political combination will form the next government. At last count leaders of both the alliances, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and his rival Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli were leading in their respective constituencies. Simultaneous polls were held for the 275-member parliament, as well as for seven provincial assembly seats through a mix of first-past-the-post and proportional representation.
There is little excitement about the elections except among party supporters as the general public is disillusioned with the shenanigans of those who wield power. Despite the euphoria of the abolition of the monarchy and the unveiling of a brand-new Republican Constitution in 2015, there has been little change in the lives of ordinary people facing a double-whammy of economic downturn since the pandemic and the spiralling inflation prices as a result of high fuel prices since Russia’s war in Ukraine. Inflation figures at the end of September were as high as 8.64.
"Voter apathy is high because unholy alliances have turned yesterday’s foes into friends, and few candidates talk about their everyday concerns like jobs, inflation, education and health," Chandra Kishore, writing in Nepali Times ahead of the polls noted.
Gauging the mood of the nation a number of young independent candidates are in the fray after local elections held in May had seen fresh non-political faces beat established politicians. Balendra Shah, a 32-year-old rapper was elected as mayor of Kathmandu defeating Nepali Congress candidate Sirjana Singh. He made history by becoming the first nonparty man to be elected to the prestigious post.
A number of independents are also contesting both the national and provincial elections. Young people in Nepal are frustrated over the lack of jobs and the corruption they see in government and want a change. But few have the organizing skills or the funds to match the traditional parties and cannot make a difference in these elections. A social media campaign promoting fresh non-party candidates is on in Kathmandu, under the hashtag: "No NotAgain" is urging people to go for fresh professionals. Out of a total of 2,412 candidates contesting the election for federal Parliament, 867 are independents.
But the actual contest for parliamentary seats is between two loose alliances, one led by current prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba of the Nepali Congress, the other by former prime minister Khagda Prasad Sharma Oli of the CPN (Unified Marxist Leninist). Deuba is supported by Prachanda’s CPN(Maoist Centre) as well as Madhav Nepal’s CPN (Unified Socialists), Baburam Bhattarai’s Socialist Party of Nepal and National People’s Front of M.B.Singh. In Oli’s camp, there is the National Democratic Party which is a royalist group for the King, and the Janata Samajbadi Party of Upendra Yadav. Another Madesh party led by Mahanta Thakur has seat adjustments with the Deuba-led Democratic Left alliance.
Nepal’s two giant neighbours India and China are closely watching developments. The Deuba alliance is much more acceptable to India as New Delhi will find it easier to work with the Nepali Congress leader.
As prime minister, Oli had turned decidedly pro-China after the 2015 road blockade, which he felt was engineered by India to support the Indian-origin people of Nepal. The mesh region had erupted in anger against what they believed was discrimination against them in the new Republican Constitution. The blockade angered not just Oli but most people who had to deal with acute shortages of cooking gas, petrol, medicines and other essentials. Landlocked Nepal obtains all its supplies through India.
The tilt towards Nepal has remained, despite both Kathmandu and New Delhi mending fences later. In his last term in office, Oli also claimed that Kalapani, Limpiyadhura and Lipulekh are in Indian territory as part of Nepal. Oli made this claim in the summer of 2020 when Indian and Chinese troops were in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation in Ladakh. Oli has promised to wrestle back the territory from India if he returns to power. However much of this is election rhetoric. Oli raised territorial issues in the first place in 2020, when he was facing a virtual revolt against his leadership. He used nationalism to stave off his challengers within the party. Both New Delhi and Kathmandu know that as neighbours they have to settle issues through negotiations. However, from time to time Nepal will continue to play the China card. Beijing too is actively engaged in Nepal having discarded its old principle of not getting involved in domestic issues of other countries. China has played an important role ahead of the 2017 elections to get all Communist factions together as Beijing hopes to befriend all of India’s South Asian neighbours. Despite looking to China to balance out India, the strong cultural and religious ties between the people of the two nations cannot easily be replaced. Both New Delhi and Kathmandu know this.
