Politics of opposition

Ever since the RSP won an outright majority in the March election, Prime Minister Balendra Shah has had a near-absolute mandate to push through his government’s programs.

The three main opposition parties were nearly uprooted, and are still in great disarray. Not only are the NC, the UML and the NCP not able to put up a united front against the RSP juggernaut, their ageing leaders do not seem to have a sense of the public sentiment against them.

Further, each of the three is rocked by internal power struggles between younger aspirational leaders and entrenched septuagenarians who have been prime minister at least 15 times between them, and been in power since 2006.

The case in point was the Nepali Congress which held its 15th General convention with hundreds of delegates—including an assortment of animal mascots and a robot—in the very heart of Kathmandu.

The tonal contrast between previous conventions and this year’s gathering reflected the generational shift from the old guard to party president Gagan Thapa, who himself is now 50.  

The NC is the only mainstream party that has at least made an effort to upend the status quo and make way for newer, younger, leadership in the wake of last year’s youth revolt. But the old guard has not given up, with former president Sher Bahadur Deuba still sulking.