CPN (Unified Socialist) formed by Madhav Kumar Nepal after splitting from CPN-UML is facing existential crisis struggling to keep leaders and cadres in the party.
Nepal, who lost the leadership election in the Ninth General Convention to KP Sharma Oli by just 44 votes, was strong in UML with a strong hold in party committees at all levels. Some of the leaders close to him shifted to Oli camp as Oli consolidated power in the party but he was still strong.
He found himself sidelined immediately after the party unified with CPN (Maoist Center) to form CPN with Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal allying to take all the decisions. But Dahal later learned the bitter way that Oli would never treat him as an equal despite being co-chairman like Oli, and allied with Nepal to tackle Oli. The Dahal-Nepal alliance was strong and had majority in most of the party bodies to put Oli in an awkward position
But the Supreme Court (SC) verdict of March 7, 2021 invalidated the unification of UML and Maoist Center, returning the two parties to the state they were in the day before unification.
Nepal had some hold in UML even after that. But most of his lieutenants including Bhim Rawal, Yuvaraj Gyawali and Ashta Laxmi Shakya who were elected vice-chairs from the Nepal panel in the ninth general convention; Surendra Pandey who lost in the election for general secretary from the panel by just five votes; Ghanashyam Bhusal, Gokarna Bista, Yogesh Bhattarai, Bhim Acharya, Raghuji Panta, Amrit Bohara and others did not join Nepal when he decided to split UML and form Unified Socialist.
The party fared poorly in the local election despite forging electoral alliance with Nepali Congress, Maoist Center and other parties in the then ruling coalition, and fared worse in the subsequent general election failing to even become a national party.
Many Unified Socialist leaders including secretariat member Mukunda Neupane, and central members Hira Chandra KC, and Sharada Swarnakar, and many district level parties have returned to UML.
Maoist Center, Unified Socialist, Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) and CPN led by Netra Bikram Chand on June 19 announced Socialist Front to form a bigger block but Unified Socialist is still struggling to hold on to its leaders and cadres.
Setopati has talked with more than 20 leaders who have quit Unified Socialist, and they have given seven main reasons for not seeing a bright future for the party. Some leaders still in the party also concur.
The first reason given by the quitting leaders is that the party's political line is not clear and they accuse Nepal of focusing solely on becoming prime minister (PM) for 18 months as part of the agreement with Dahal and NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba to take turns as PM instead of holding debate for ideology in the party and to build its organization.
The second reason is that Nepal seems to wish to only show the party's existence through the government by pleasing Maoist Center and NC. The third is extreme humiliation by NC and Maoist Center inside the ruling coalition, and the massive fall in bargaining power inside the coalition after failing to become national party.
The fourth is that Nepal is also continuing Oli's attitude of favoritism while the fifth is failure to justify splitting UML with the people's mandate, in their opinion, refuting the allegations made against Oli at the time of splitting UML.
The sixth reason is the belief of those leaders that announcement of the Socialist Front has paved the way for eventual merger with Maoist Center even though it can act as a protective shield for now.
The seventh reason is that Nepal continues to eventually make compromises with the ruling coalition after seemingly taking strong stands initially.
Unified Socialist held secretariat meeting from July 14-21 in Kirtipur to take stock of the party's state. Almost all the secretariat members who spoke during the meeting pointed that the votes of ruling coalition were not transferred to the party in the recent elections, according to Vice-chairman Rajendra Pandey.
"There were opinions that coalition parties did not sincerely vote. It would not have been difficult to become a national party if the votes were transferred," Pandey stated. "We are preparing to contest the coming election alone with that conclusion."
The party is planning a series of meetings starting with secretariat meeting on July 31. Standing committee meeting will be held on August 1 and 2, politburo meeting on 3 and 4, to be followed by central committee meeting in the next two days.
