When the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) came to the fore in Nepali politics, the amount of optimism it received from the people living in the hill region was rather generous. At its center was a figure who had accumulated sufficient social capital, covering sensational news stories, often making himself the protagonist who comes to the rescue of a struggling mass. The privilege his blood and surname carried would later influence the state to overlook his criminal offenses of dual nationality. And as he basked in the joy of his electoral success, he would have had little apprehension for his and his party’s future. But in less than two years since he led his party to the fourth largest position in Nepal’s Federal Parliament, RSP appears to be in a state of gradual degeneration.
The troubles befalling this new party keep unfolding at a scale higher than its leadership’s current ability to harmlessly contain them. The most worrying of them involves the party’s president Rabi Lamichhane himself. It appears that the baggage he carries from his past is too heavy for him not to dent his party’s overall image. His identity may have been able to conceal his citizenship or passport scandal, but his alleged involvement in Nepal’s cooperative scam is too serious an offense to escape, particularly as the latter has very real victims. Indira Rana, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives from RSP, is embroiled in another scandal, which may implicate her in a human trafficking offense. The party’s top leadership has been accused of hiding her illegal attempt to facilitate U.S. visas for five individuals by falsely identifying them as members of an official Nepali delegation to some multilateral event. Similarly, a power struggle in the party spiraled to Lamichhane dismissing the general secretary Mukul Dhakal “from all official posts.” All these events have contributed to a gradual decline in the public’s faith in Lamichhane’s RSP which has assumed the face of the very frustrations they have had with the traditional parties: corruption, misgovernance, abuse of authority, and endless dirty politics.
A Declining Appeal
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RSP’s troubles in its still-nascent phase may indicate an uncertain future for the party, but what underlies these more apparent issues behind its declining charm are much deeper factors that the party and its leaders should reflect upon. The most obvious one is Lamichhane’s then strategic necessity to join the government when the clear mandate his party had received was to be in the opposition. Instead of pressuring the government, as a vocal opposition, for better delivery and building the party’s stature, image, and hold at the grassroots, Lamichhane goaded the party to the forefront of Nepal’s struggling governance. Not only did it expose his proclivity to power and fame, but Lamichhane’s stint as a Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister also made him a party to the political settlement games that people have grown impatient looking at. Oftentimes, it overshadowed the positive contribution and immense potential of other members of the party.
Lamichhane’s baggage from his past may have shaped the party’s decisions but it is the lack of ideological clarity that has nurtured his sole dominance in the party–another feature of the traditional parties the Nepali people have been frustrated with. In the past, the party had been ambivalent about some of the fundamental features of the current constitution, such as federalism. While it may not feel the same ownership of the system, RSP gains little in undermining the fact that federalism is an outcome of a popular revolution that should not be toyed around with. This brings up another equally important factor that limits RSP’s growth: overlooking Madhesh.
No political issue in Nepal, let alone a party, gains national status without sizable support from Madhesh, a political entity with size, strength, and scope well beyond the one confined by today’s provincial boundaries. The political consciousness and judgment of the Madhesi people easily outperform what the country’s hill elites are willing to bestow them with, which is evidenced by Upendra Yadav’s decline and C.K. Raut’s rise. To leave Madhesh out of their equation for political success was never good news for the party. Neither has been their subtle political posturing as a conservative force, built on the Panchayat-era hill nationalism. Madhesh certainly has not failed to see a lack of their rightful place in Nepal imagined by the RSP.
The party’s leadership has also not spent much effort in gradually molding the party’s image to a more benign one, to make it look more than just a vehicle that serves the common interests of a handful of highly-skilled ambitious individuals. Instead, it remains an elite-centric loose group of individuals whose political understanding of the grassroots has often proved to be inadequate. This situation must be particularly concerning for a party that is still looking to build a reliable voter base by uprooting decades of dominance by traditional parties. However, instead of reflecting on how internal disharmony hampers the party’s image, the leadership has voluntarily given room for RSP’s deeper speculations and scrutiny, which appears to all as nothing different from the traditional parties hijacked by a handful of hill Brahmin men.
Way Forward
In a nutshell, as a party that sold promises of better political culture and good governance, RSP has been faring miserably on both fronts. As a result, some highly promising individuals have unfortunately had to compromise on the true impact they are capable of creating. Nevertheless, each little (in)action constitutes a broader culture or practice, which means each individual in the party has to come to this realization and take their share of the blame. With that self-reflection, its leaders should instill confidence in the party with the fundamental truth that RSP’s existence is crucial for Nepal’s parliamentary democracy. Nepal’s political landscape does offer a vacuum for a reliable alternative party to not just exploit the weaknesses of the traditional parties but also to keep them in check. To offer that alternative, RSP has to first deftly craft its identity that does not alienate any section of society. It should then strategize and execute campaigns to disseminate that image, through the parliament and media. Before that, however, its leadership has to find a way to settle its internal discord, even if it requires making temporary sacrifices. And while it does so, transparency and accountability will prove to be its best companions.
