Until late September, when the CPN-UML central committee was scheduled to meet in Bhanimandal, Lalitpur, party Chairman KP Sharma Oli appeared to be finding himself in an increasingly difficult position within the party.
Even leaders considered close to Oli were calling on him to take responsibility for the party’s electoral defeat and reorganize the party.
But the situation changed after the central committee meeting began on September 21.
General Secretary Shankar Pokharel, who had supported party reorganization, told the meeting that he was not in favor of immediate restructuring. He also clarified that he had never considered removing Oli as party chairman.
Vice-chairman Bishnu Paudel, too, expressed support for continuing under Oli’s leadership.
With leaders who had appeared to favor leadership change and party reorganization only a short time earlier suddenly backing away, questions over Oli’s leadership have weakened, at least for the time being.
Pokharel’s remarks disappointed even leaders close to him. Others, however, interpreted his position as a strategy adopted for the time being.
So, how did the situation change by the time the central committee meeting took place?
Why did leaders who had been questioning Oli’s leadership retreat?
And why did General Secretary Pokharel, who had proposed party reorganization, end up supporting Oli’s leadership?
To understand the background, it is necessary to revisit a meeting Oli convened in Gundu on August 20.
What happened at the Gundu meeting?
On August 20, UML Chairman Oli summoned leaders who had long been close to him to a meeting in Gundu.
Those attending included Vice-chairmen Bishnu Paudel and Prithvi Subba Gurung, General Secretary Shankar Pokharel, former deputy general secretaries Pradeep Gyawali and Bishnu Rimal, Vice-chairman Ram Bahadur Thapa, and Secretary Bhanubhakta Dhakal.
The meeting, attended by leaders who had supported Oli since the party’s eighth general convention, continued late into the night.
The main focus was Oli’s political future, particularly allegations against him and proposals contained in a report prepared by the Election Review and Party Reorganization Task Force.
The report included recommendations that Oli take primary responsibility for the party’s humiliating electoral defeat, that the party be reorganized, and that a meeting of the National Representatives Council be convened for that purpose.
Oli interpreted the report as an attempt to remove him from the leadership. He therefore wanted to clarify the positions of leaders close to him on its contents.
General Secretary Pokharel wanted the report implemented, while Oli sought to undermine its legitimacy.
The issue prompted lengthy discussions at the Gundu meeting.
According to a source, Vice-chairman Paudel made it clear during the meeting that he was no longer in favor of party reorganization.
“Comrade Bishnu said, ‘What has happened has happened. It will not happen again. I will not pursue this any further. I have dropped the idea of calling a meeting of the National Representatives Council; that is no longer possible,’” said the source, who attended the meeting.
General Secretary Pokharel also reportedly said that the report was not his personal document and that he had no personal agenda behind it.
“If no one is willing to take ownership of it, I have nothing to say,” the source quoted Pokharel as saying.
Vice-chairman Gurung also backed away. According to the source, he said, “Do whatever you want; I have nothing to say.”
With even leaders who had supported implementing the report backing away, the proposal to change the party leadership weakened following the Gundu meeting, according to the source.
A source close to Oli claimed that leaders who had publicly discussed changing the leadership sought to shift blame onto one another and distance themselves from responsibility for the report during the meeting.
“Outside, they were saying he would be removed today or tomorrow. But when they came to Gundu, everyone rejected it,” said a leader close to Oli. “Oli had not yielded to Prachanda [Pushpa Kamal Dahal] and Madhav Nepal in the past. Why would he fear those he himself had promoted?”
According to the leader, the participants agreed at the August 20 meeting not to raise the issue of leadership change.
Some leaders also claim that Paudel faced pressure from within his own family not to leave Oli’s camp.
According to them, Paudel’s family advised him that, since he would not become party chairman, it would be better to move forward accepting Oli’s leadership.
Effort to rewrite the report also fails
After leaders backed away at the Gundu meeting, Oli instructed them to rewrite the task force’s report. However, General Secretary Pokharel refused, arguing that he could not prepare a second version after having drafted the original report himself.
Vice-chairman Paudel also said that would not be able to write another report as he was physically and mentally exhausted.
Oli then asked former deputy general secretary Gyawali to prepare a new report.
When Gyawali also declined, the responsibility was assigned to Vice-chairman Thapa.
However, the report prepared by Thapa focused almost entirely on rebutting the task force’s original report.
Oli subsequently assigned Gyawali the task of preparing another version.
Yet Oli accepted neither the original task force report, which had taken more than two months to prepare following discussions at lower party committees, nor the two reports subsequently drafted.
At the central committee meeting held from September 21 to 24 in Bhanimandal, Lalitpur, he did not allow the reports to be discussed either.
While the central committee meeting was underway, Oli told a secretariat meeting held on September 21 that the secretariat itself had formed the task force and therefore had the authority to decide what to do with its report.
He maintained that the report would remain the property of the secretariat and would not be discussed elsewhere.
As a result, the report prepared to review the election and initiate party reorganization never reached the central committee for discussion.
Was action against Pokharel being considered?
The dispute over party reorganization subsided, at least temporarily, after General Secretary Pokharel expressed support for Oli’s leadership at the central committee meeting held in Bhanimandal.
According to leaders close to Pokharel, pressure from Oli was also a factor in his retreat.
They claimed that disciplinary action against Pokharel was also being considered had he not expressed support for Oli’s leadership during the central committee meeting.
Oli himself conducted the four-day meeting and determined how much time individual members would be allowed to speak.
This limited General Secretary Pokharel’s role. The manner in which Oli conducted the meeting appeared to signal his dissatisfaction with Pokharel.
However, tensions between Oli and Pokharel predated the central committee meeting.
Within days of the election, Pokharel had argued that the party’s grassroots structures had deteriorated significantly and that it needed to be reorganized. He had also urged Oli to hand over the leadership.
Oli was not happy with the proposal.
“Immediately after the election, the general secretary went to him and said that he should now hand over the leadership. The chairman did not like that,” a leader close to Pokharel said. “He became angry, thinking, ‘Even my most trusted person is saying this to me.’ The chairman then discussed the matter with leaders close to him and even had them write against Pokharel on social media.”
The leader claimed that another issue had also contributed to Oli’s dissatisfaction with Pokharel.
Oli was unhappy that the party had not organized any protest after police took him into custody on March 28.
Oli had wanted nationwide demonstrations against his detention, but protests did not materialize on the scale he had hoped for.
Leaders close to Pokharel believe the tensions arising from these incidents could persist for a long time.
Does Oli want another term as party chairman?
According to a leader close to Pokharel, Oli is preparing to contest the party chairmanship at the UML’s 12th general convention as well.
The leader claimed that this was one reason Oli was unwilling to hand over the leadership in the immediate future.
“Oli will not hand over the leadership to anyone. There are already indications that he intends to become a candidate at the 12th general convention,” the leader said. “If he intended to transfer the leadership, he would not be centralizing power. The reason for bringing former president Bidya Devi Bhandari into the picture is also the same.”
Some UML leaders believe that Oli and former president Bhandari each have their own interests in her return to active party politics.
According to these leaders, Oli wanted to bring Bhandari into the party to ease internal discontent, while Bhandari herself wanted to secure her position in the party by returning to active politics.
However, at a standing committee meeting held from October 8 to 10, Bhandari also raised questions about Oli.
She presented her views in a measured manner, arguing that someone should not be removed from a responsibility simply for questioning the party leadership.
Four factions emerging within UML?
With Bhandari becoming active in the party, some UML leaders believe four factions, of varying sizes, could emerge within the organization.
The first consists of leaders close to party Chairman Oli. The second comprises those aligned with General Secretary Pokharel, while the third consists of leaders close to former president Bhandari.
The fourth group includes leaders who were close to Madhav Kumar Nepal when he was still in the UML. This group has long functioned as a persistent opposition to Oli within the party.
According to a leader from the fourth group, Oli still controls the party, although more members are beginning to understand the internal situation.
“We have long been raising issues such as limiting the party chair to two terms, granting more authority to lower-level committees, and enforcing a 70-year age limit. Shankarji has raised these issues now, too, but they could not stand firm,” the leader said. “Bishnuji compromised, and Shankar appeared to surrender. Nevertheless, the agendas of everyone outside Oli’s camp have now become broadly similar.”
From the discussions in Gundu on August 20 to the central committee meeting in Bhanimandal in late September, Oli has managed to weaken, at least temporarily, the challenges to his leadership within the party.
General Secretary Pokharel and Vice-chairman Paudel, who had supported party reorganization, have both moved toward supporting Oli’s leadership. The task force report prepared to review the election was also prevented from being discussed at the central committee.
These developments have weakened the party reorganization agenda for now. However, leaders outside Oli’s camp insist that the issue has not been settled.
They believe the agenda, now pushed into the background, could gradually regain momentum and resurface with greater force.
