Nepal has quietly plunged into a constitutional crisis. After months of tension within the ruling Nepal Communist Party, Prime Minister KP ...
Nepal has quietly plunged into a constitutional crisis. After months of tension within the ruling Nepal Communist Party, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on Sunday recommended that the country’s lower house of parliament be dissolved. Nepal President Bidya Devi Bhandari duly followed through.
Oli’s defence: “The elected government was pushed to a corner and picketed against” by rival factions of his own party, so what could he do but dissolve parliament? If the country’s Supreme Court does not stay the move, Nepal will go into elections on April 30 and May 10 to elect a new government.
It has been argued that Oli’s actions were unconstitutional as there is no provision for the prime minister to unilaterally dissolve parliament. Across the country, protestors from the Nepal Communist Party took to the streets to protest against Oli’s “undemocratic” move.
An unpopular executive order precipitated the current crisis. But a lot more lies beneath. A clash of personalities – Oli and former Nepal prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, popularly known as Prachanda. Nepal’s fraught relationship with parliamentary democracy. Its position as a buffer state between India and China, both fighting for influence over it.
An order
Oli pulled the plug on parliament after he came under pressure to withdraw an ordinance under the Constitutional Council...
