Kathmandu, Nepal, March 15, 2022: There is just about 8 weeks to meet the date for the local level election that is slated for May 13. Political parties, however, failed to launch the election campaign in local levels by fielding their candidates, thanks to the indecision regarding the possible electoral alliance among themselves.
Not only the oppositions but also the ruling partners of the incumbent coalition government- the Nepali Congress (NC) CPN (Maoist Center), CPN (United Socialist) and the Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP)- have also failed to take the decision regarding the electoral alliance.
The ruling allies, particularly the CPN Maoist Center and the CPN United Socialist are desirous to forge electoral alliance with the Nepali Congress, thanks to their poor political base in the local level. The ruling head Nepali Congress, however, is yet come openly regarding the formation of electoral alliance with other ruling allies.
Party President Sher Bahadur Deuba, who is also the Prime Minister of the incumbent coalition government, is in favor of forging electoral alliance with the ruling allies. Party’s senior leader Ram Chandra Poudel is also backing to Deuba. But the camp led by Shekhar Koirala has firmly stood against the idea of forging electoral alliance.
It is said that the Nepali Congress leaders, who had been opposing the idea to forge electoral alliance including party’s general secretary Gagan Thapa, have begun to show loyalties to forge electoral alliance with the ruling partners after they supported the party to endorse the MCC compact from Parliament.
Though the division among the communist parties would help the Nepali Congress to win the majority seats in the local level elections, electoral alliance would require it to secure more seats, a leader close to the Prime Minister Deuba said.
As Nepali Congress alone could not win the elections in most of the places, Prime Minister Deuba has already given words to the ruling allies for the electoral alliance. Reliable source close to the Prime Minister Deuba claims that top leaders of the ruling allies have already agreed for the electoral alliance even with the understanding to give authority to the local units to take the decision.
As per the understanding, a task force will be formed in the center to set out a formula on how to forge an electoral alliance by sharing the posts. Though the local unities will exercise the right to take decision about whether to forge electoral alliance, the taskforce will give a formula to take the decision.
