There is little surprise that UCPN-M deputy Baburam Bhattarai has been elected as Nepal’s 35th prime minister with a comfortable margin of 105 votes. Bhattarai secured 340 votes while his only competitor NC’s Ram Chandra Paudel could only manage 235.
Bhattarai had earlier played an instrumental role in bringing his party out of post ‘People’s War’ psyche and drop the official line of people’s revolt in favor of Peace and Constitution. Despite immense challenges within the party, Bhattarai managed to win confidence of a large number of his party members, including the hardliners.
Although he failed to garner support from NC and UML as a consensual candidate, Bhattarai became the obvious winner with strong support from Madhesi front and the fringe parties. His impressive record as a leader during his nine month tenure as a Finance Minister in Puspa Kamal Dahal’s cabinet played in his favour during the election.
After Speaker Subhash Chandra Nembang issued a ruling for mandatory voting, the parties were forced to either field a candidate of their own or choose between those contesting. This ruling helped Bhattarai collect a majority of the votes in his favour.
Most of the leaders on Sunday stated that although they (parties) did not agree entirely with Maoists’ programs, they believed that the party’s leadership was essential to take peace process and constitution drafting to its logical end. They were quite open about acknowledging Bhattarai’s credibility as an honest and visionary leader.
Baburam Bhattarai has always excelled, be it his academic life or his political. But winning this election was the easier part, Bhattarai’s real challenge begins tonight. Those 340 votes of support will weigh heavily on him in the coming days.
The Maoists have promised to integrate and rehabilitate their combatants within one and half months. They have also promised to return seized properties and form the Truth and Reconciliation committee and Committee to reveal the identity and status of the Disappeared.
In three days’ time, the second extended tenure of the CA expires. But given the new political developments, it is most likely that the CA will be extended for another three months.
Can Baburam Bhattarai deliver on promises his party has made to people of Nepal? He may have the determination and the roadmap, but the real challenge is to ensure cooperation and compromise among ideologically diverse political constituencies. He needs to work towards the collective goal of institutionalising peace and democracy and give this troubled nation its long-awaited new constitution.
Anurag Acharya
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And, if you are posting at additional places, I would like to follow anything fresh you have to post. Would you list of the complete urls of all your social community pages like your twitter feed, Facebook page or linkedin profile?
The power struggle within the Maoist party is likely to intensify now.The attempt to eliminate Jamkattel is just a prelude by Prachanda’s opponents to weaken him.
Prachanda is not going to give up his power easily, Vaidhya will not give up his hard line. Bhattarai despite the tenuous backing from Madhesi parties and India,who would like nothing better than to see Prachanda cut down to size, will need all his wits to fend off the rivals in the party.
Vaidya will support him as long as he follows strict Maoist ideology of continuous revolution until all the democratic forces are eliminated.
Bhattarai has proven himself to be a master politician and outmaneuvered Prachanda. But by aligning himself with Vaidya’s hardline faction to become the prime-minister, it will be difficult for him to gain the trust and confidence of the other opposition parties.
Sunny,I call him Dr. Death.
UNDOUBTEDLY. DR BHATARAI HAS MANY CHALLENGES AS PM.HOW HE WILL
MANAGE DEPEND ON HIS SKILL AND OBSERVATIONS IN NEPAL AS INTELLECTUAL. MAOIST HAS SEVERAL SPOTS OF WAR-TIME AND COMMONER NOT YET RESCUED ……….. DECADES OF EFFORT MAY BE REQUIRED.
PARASITES OF HIS OWN PARTY AND CORRUPTION ICON OF OTHER
POLITICAL PARTIES AS WELL AS BUREAUCRACY WILL BE GREAT HURDLE IN THE WAY.
It is true that many people lost their lives during the Maoist insurgency.It is also true that many people are leaving the country for menial jobs in places like Qatar,Malaysia…and if not anywhere else,India.
I myself did not get much opportunity as an Engineer back in Kathmandu and have been working in India for over a year.
I also agree that our new PM was directly/indirectly involved in the killing of lot of innocent lives…but if we just look at the history of any country of past 100-150 years,there have been revolutions in almost every country,be it the partition of India in 1947 ,the civil war in Srilanka or the birth of Bangladesh as a new country in the 1970’s.
There is chaos…corruption….unemployment,but I feel the situation is not as bad as Iraq,Somalia,Liberai or Afghanistan.There is always hope and an opportunity provided to all of us to make a difference…and rather than saying that the roads are bad…politicians are corrupt …electricity is not there….lets say..”Wow!….there are so many Hydel projects to be worked upon and money to be made”…so many roads to build and villages to discover…so many kids to teach and so many lives to change!:)”
It is a land where even Buddha chose to be born..can it be so bad?…or can the people be so bad?…We still have the likes of Rudra Pandey, Kul Chandra Gautam, Jhamak Kumari,Bhagwan Koirala and even the leader of Harvard Student Council as a Nepali….all contributing in their field in some way or other
Lastly, all I would say is…lets keep the petty differences away….support this man(after all we need to support anyone somehow…and I don’t know why but i feel that this guy’s going to deliver).
Jai Nepal!
I feel bad on how Nepali Times ignores ‘Dr.’ with Dr. Bhattarai. I have been following all the news about him and have had chance to see only a few times a respective prefix to him.
The greatest challenge for any leadership and the country itself is to go beyond the historical as well as current divisions that are prominently camouflaged within our cultural and social perceptions, each giving its own definition of what it means to be a Nepali, each considering itself the ideal.
“His impressive record as a leader during his nine month tenure as a Finance Minister in Puspa Kamal Dahal’s cabinet played in his favour during the election.”
I wish the above statement was true, but sadly its not. Of course he did a brilliant job a s a Finance Minister, but you can’t tell me our politicians make decisions based on what is right and what is wrong for our country. I tend to think that ‘real’ politicians, those who are driven by their ideology and have a plan, a vision on what they want to achieve, make for around 5% of total CA members. The rest are utter rubbish. We’re here for the food, hello do you hear me?
We never met before, we even do not know each other in person. I still salute the election of Dr. Baburam Bhattarai (BR) to the post of Prime Minister of Nepal, because first, he represents special moment in Nepal’s modern history, and, second, simply because we come from the same school. By school, I certainly do not mean school of ideology. Our stances may lie far apart in the spectrum of worldviews or political thoughts. What I am trying to elicit here is a more deeper and organic connection that binds us together rather than separates us apart. BR’s early spirit was nurtured by the combination of simplicity of rural life in Gorkha and by some of the best universal values of enlightenment. He never stood second in his intellectual life, not because of arrogance to ‘outsmart’ others but as a result of perseverance and focused efforts to achieve the goal. He was indeed a great inspiration to my generation. His honesty, integrity, hard work, self-discipline, humility, and, above all, an exemplary capacity to achieve a set goal built the fabric of his early school character. BR has demonstrated capacity to beat the odds, and put tough questions to the establishment. Ironically, it seems BR was never interested in politics per se when he was in his school years. However, the destiny of Nepal sort of ‘forced’ him to take up the ‘other’ path, and it eventually brought him all the way to the top-most elected position, an architect-leader to build ‘New’ Nepal. I am not here to pass my judgment on his role during the ‘civil war’ or the ‘people’s war’ (whatever you may prefer to label it). My utterance is that the social fabric of Nepali society has gone through one of the most traumatic and violent periods in modern history, and the healing process is not yet complete. There are three distinct tasks waiting before the nation– bringing comprehensive peace process, genuine reconciliation, and the new constitution drafting to a logical end. I wish the earlier BR prevailed in this historic and monumental nation-building task. The country at this historic juncture desperately needs those very finest qualities (attributes) that went into the building of BR’s school character. No doubt, “character is the destiny of a nation.” A bright future is waiting for all Nepalis. Congratulations to the new Prime Minister!!
With Bhattarai being the PM, his focus on Economy will be impaired.
Does this mean more time for the Nepali Economy to recover?
OR can he play a larger role as PM to revive the Nepali economy?
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