Bhattarai’s democracy call ‘a bargaining tactic’

KATHMANDU, JAN 06 -
The UCPN (Maoist) faction led by party Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has said that Baburam Bhattarai’s call for intra-arty democracy is more of a bargaining tactic to grab some plum posts for himself than a genuine concern for “democratic internal structures”.

Bhattarai has demanded that the party should develop a mechanism to elect its organisations through a direct election and that a chairman should not be allowed to contest for more than two consecutive terms. Bhattarai’s criticism of Dahal follows the party’s loss in the November election. Terming the loss “unexpected,” Bhattarai has demanded that Dahal should self-criticise, realising the debacle as his own failure.

Leaders close to the Dahal faction, however, said Bhattarai’s preaching for “internal democracy” and change of leadership at this moment is neither logical nor principled given the fact that Bhattarai himself proposed Dahal as the party’s chairman declaring him “the sole leader of the party”. In February last year, the party’s seventh General Convention had endorsed Bhattarai’s proposal, unanimously electing Dahal as chairman. Dahal is eligible to rule the party at least for the next four years as per the convention mandate, Dahal supporters said.

“Bhattarai is raising the issue of leadership change even though it has been just a year since the convention re-elected Dahal as the party chairman. We can see through his demands,” said a leader close to Dahal.

In fact, Bhattarai is bargaining for the post of parliamentary party leader and a leading role in the constitution-drafting process, the leader said.

Immediately after the November 19 election, Bhattarai through social networking sites expressed dissatisfaction over the “undemocratic” working style of the party chairman and called for reframing the organisational structure to revitalise the party. Subsequently, the relation between Dahal and Bhattarai soured and it hit a new low due to disgruntlement over the handing out of the party’s seats won through proportional representation.

“Bhattarai’s irresponsible public statement against the leadership at the critical juncture is one of the reasons that prompted Dahal to select PR candidates unilaterally,” the leader said.

Meanwhile, party spokesperson Agni Prasad Sapkota said, “It’s unfortunate that instead of expressing dissatisfaction in the party’s official platform, Bhattarai is launching public campaign against the party chairman. Party leaders should table their dissatisfaction in the party, not in the press.”

Leaders close to Dahal said both Bhattarai and Narayan Kaji Shrestha have turned down Dahal’s invitations to settle the issues at the party’s meetings.

“The very irresponsive acts of the leaders have miffed the party chairman. He had to select the PR candidates in their absence after they did not show up despite repeated requests. It’s not true that the selection process breached the criteria set by the party,” said another leader close to Dahal.

The Dahal faction has already told Bhattarai and Shrestha to face party’s Central Committee (CC) which is scheduled to begin on January 11.

The meeting has been called to review the past mistakes, mainly about the election debacle and chalk out party’s future political course. Leaders of the Dahal faction said that they are ready to face any challenges in the party’s CC meeting, including the leadership change.

Dahal has the support of a majority of CC members. “We are ready to settle all the contentious issues through voting in the CC and it is a democratic process,” said a Dahal loyalist.

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