JOIN USNepal’s Constitution has been dealt yet another blow with President Bidhya Devi Bhandari dissolving the country’s lower house of parliament last week. This is the second time in less than six months that she has dissolved parliament on the recommendation of Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli. Her decision in December to dissolve the lower house was struck down by the Supreme Court in February. The apex court declared her decision unconstitutional and reinstated parliament. One would have thought that after the Supreme Court’s decision, she would exercise more caution and stay clear of making decisions that violated the country’s Constitution. As recent events indicate, she seems to have paid little heed to the principles and procedures laid down by the Constitution.
When Oli lost the trust vote in parliament on May 10, President Bhandari gave the opposition parties very little time to build a majority to form an alternative government. Instead of exhausting the constitutional option of allowing Nepali Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba to test his majority on the floor of parliament, she deemed that the NC-led claim to form the government did not have adequate support and reappointed Oli as Prime Minister on May 13, although he too did not have a majority and had lost a trust vote just days earlier. Bhandari then swiftly dissolved parliament to leave him as caretaker till elections. This is what Oli had wanted all along and Bhandari has played along with his script. Bhandari has severely undermined the respect and stature of the presidency by acting as a facilitator of Oli’s ambitions rather than keeping in check his repeated assaults on the Constitution.
Not surprisingly, the opposition and Nepal’s civil society have questioned the neutrality of their President. They have also challenged her decision in the apex court. Will Nepal’s Supreme Court reiterate the order it issued in February or will its judges succumb to pressure from the Oli-Bhandari combine? What the court decides will be crucial for the survival of Nepal’s fragile democracy.
Fresh elections, slated for November, are unwise at this point. Among other problems, Nepal is in the midst of a sharp surge in Covid-19 infections and the pandemic is unlikely to have subsided by November. The country recorded a 668% increase in new infections between mid-April and May and its health infrastructure is woefully inadequate. Instead of acting to prepare for the pandemic, politicians have been busy conspiring against each other in pursuit of power. Nepal’s political class has displayed a shocking level of indifference to the plight of its people.