Baburam should be prime minister

The evening Madhav Kumar Nepal freed this country from his premiership, I had a rather thought-wrenching conversation with a cab driver who was driving me home. He was literally buoyed up and seemed eager to strike up a conversation with me. “It’s good that Makune (a derogatory appellation, Ma being Madhav, Ku being Kumar and Ne being Nepal, with which he is rooted in Nepali people’s psyche) has gone,” he said. “He was a puppet prime minister. He was a nonperforming child who smiled most of his tenure in joy.” “Who should be our next PM?” I asked. “Baburam Bhattarai,” he said in a breath. “But they will not let him become one,” he added. “They will induct somebody without vision, somebody that has lost the election. This is the fate of this country. Good men are always sidelined.”

In an SMS opinion poll on who should be the next prime minister conducted by one of the TV channels, after a couple of days of Nepal’s resignation, Baburam received more than 4,000 SMS, his party chief Prachanda 1,600 SMS and NC leader Sher Bahadur Deuba 200 SMS. It is, indeed, an honor for Bhattarai to be recognized by people when most of his colleagues are losing their credibility and image. It, indeed, is a matter of joy for the hope-seeking country to have a politician like him in reserve.

Dr Baburam Bhattarai is perhaps the only political leader whom people still trust. Irrespective of the political affiliations, many people in Nepal have a great regard for him. They believe that if Baburam leads this nation something will come up. As for me, I am greatly impressed by his nonsmiling countenance and his honest commitment to do good to this country. It appears to me that this man from Gorkha, a son of a poor peasant family, has sacrificed the whole of his life thinking for this country. He could have become a millionaire if he had exhausted his skills and expertise in making money.

""Dr Baburam Bhattarai is perhaps the only political leader whom people still trust. Besides his intellectual strength, he is the only leader to win the election by the largest margin ever in Nepali electoral history.""

Besides his intellectual strength, he is the only leader to win the election by the largest margin ever in Nepali electoral history. In the Nepali politics post-1990 he is perhaps the only successful minister. All this should make him the most eligible candidate for the next prime minister. But these qualifications notwithstanding, he is becoming, as the cabby had prophesied that evening, sidelined. The date for the prime minister’s election has been fixed. Other names are being proposed except Baburam’s. He is receding into the mists. It seems that the country’s politics is choosing to do without the talent of one of the veteran leaders of this age.

Should Baburam brave to satisfy the public expectations, many adversities will come his way. For the first thing, he will have to struggle within his own party. It is a public knowledge now that even within the Maoists, Baburam leads a faction that is more democratic and liberal. He will have to fight the hardliners. Most daunting of all, he will have to fight his own chairman. In the crowd of so many unruly leaders and cadres, Baburam stands out as a lone figure in his own party. Secondly, Nepali Congress and Nepal Communist Party (UML) will try to reserve this coveted position for them as far as possible. They have relished the country’s politics single-handedly for more than about 17 years and know very well where the power tastes sweet. They know how to form collusion and how to plot for coalition better than this new party. So they started to ogle at prime minister’s chair right after Madhav Nepal quit. The mantra of consensus has failed to hold. So it is very unlikely that he can bring them around for a consensus government in his leadership. Even if he can he will have to make so many compromises with them that he is likely to be dysfunctional as his predecessors. Thirdly, he will have to take into confidence the affluent class and the business community. They are cynical about him. In the nine months of his finance ministership Baburam earned notoriety as strict minister in matters relating to revenue and taxation policy which apparently frightened the business tycoons of the country. Cash shortage in banks for his enforcing a strict income tax policy is a painful reminder of this fact. Fearing that they have to pay tax to the state many of Kathmandu’s rich withdrew large sums of money from their bank accounts and hid it.

Despite these challenges, this scribe, at the cost of risking neutrality, believes that Baburam should be the next prime minister because he is a locus of hope and faith. In the last two decades of Nepali politics, time has tested king, parliamentary parties and Maoists in Prachanda’s leadership. All have betrayed people’s hope. Now this hope hovers around Baburam. His premiership will cheer up the working class and poor people like taxi drivers and manual labors. Of course it will be very difficult for him to satisfy people’s expectations by leading the hard-earned coalition, ie, if he does become our next prime minister. In the absolute majority of his own party his dream to see this country prosperous can materialize. But the ability of a man is tested in such a critical period. So he should be ready for the challenges ahead. If he succeeds he will revive falling hope of people for the politicians and will set examples for others to follow. If he fails, like many others have done before, he will disburden the people of loyalty and trust upon his scholarship and workmanship. He will then disburden people of continually nurturing (false) hope. People are counting on him. Either he should teach them to hope again or he should free them from this burden.

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