CPN (Maoist Center) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has said that conspiracies against the country and the people have not ceased, and that attempts to undermine the interim government have already begun.
In a video message released on Thursday, Dahal said, "Conspiracies against the country and the people have not ended. Attempts to undermine the interim government have already begun. There may be planned attempts to prevent elections from taking place and push the country into further instability. We want the announced elections to be held on time."
The government led by Prime Minister Sushila Karki has announced House of Representatives elections for March 5, 2026.
Dahal also noted that the coming days would be continuously challenging for patriotic and democratic forces.
"Our clear stance is that going back from the Constitution, democratic republic, and its fundamental principles will not lead to solutions but to further crises," he said. "The alternative to democracy is an even more advanced democracy. Those buried in the graveyard of history are trying to exploit the youth's desire for change to reverse the people's achievements. Therefore, the country now seeks strong unity among all democratic, republican, and change-loving forces."
Dahal emphasized that it is the collective duty of all Nepalis to protect the nation's independence by safeguarding the Constitution and democracy.
He mentioned that although it was possible to immediately amend the Constitution from the same Parliament to transition to a governance model with a directly elected executive, leveraging the momentum of the Gen-Z movement, this did not happen.
"The Constitution could have been amended based on the country's other needs and justifications. After that, dissolving Parliament could have been considered. But today, the achievements of the Gen Z movement have been limited to the formation of an interim government and the announcement of elections. The opportunity to change the governance system and make history was lost," Dahal said on the eve of Constitution Day.
He also highlighted similarities between the dissenting opinions registered by the Maoists a decade ago and the demands raised by the current Gen Z movement.
"At that time, we didn’t have enough numbers in the Constituent Assembly, so we had to compromise. However, we registered our disagreements as written dissenting opinions in the court of history. What Gen Z is demanding now—a directly elected executive—was our main dissenting opinion at that time. We wanted to dismantle the current electoral system, where money flows freely and ordinary people cannot even imagine contesting elections. We were in favor of a fully proportional electoral system," he said.
Dahal said that as a former prime minister and leader of the main opposition party, he had continuously cautioned the leadership of the Nepali Congress and CPN-UML not to play with the people's emotions and anger.
"We put up a much larger resistance than our size in parliament as an opposition party. We fought against bad governance, corruption, favoritism, government’s arrogance and oppression from the streets to the parliament. As a political party, we were the first to support the demands of the Gen Z movement. After extreme repression during the movement, we demanded the prime minister's resignation in the evening of September 8," he said. "Despite disagreements over the method and process of dissolving Parliament, the role of Prachanda [Dahal] and the Maoist Center in facilitating the leadership of the interim government with the president is clear to all. I will say this much: for me, the Gen Z movement is an expression of the agendas that the Maoist revolution could not fulfill from the negotiation table."
