The Communist Party of China team tasked with uniting the two rival factions of the Communist Party of Nepal (PNC) led by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and former Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal alias Prachanda may not have made much progress, people said. familiar with the matter. after the Prachanda-led group stepped up attacks on Prime Minister Oli on Tuesday for dissolving the House of Representatives from parliament and calling new elections.
Former Prime Ministers Prachanda, Madhav Nepal and Jhalanath Khanal, the three leaders of the communist party who are at the forefront of the attacks against Prime Minister Oli, are also set to address a joint rally against Prime Minister Oli.
The joint rally comes a day after the three met separately with the visiting Chinese delegation led by Guo Yezhou, vice minister of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
Guo Yezhou and his team were sent to visit Nepal by President Xi Jinping to prevent the ruling Communist Party in Nepal from splitting.
Last week, Prime Minister Oli dissolved parliament in a surprise move that he later explained was designed to prevent his rivals within the party from filing a motion of no confidence against him. It was seen as a precursor to the split in the CPN that was formed in 2018 with the merger of the Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist Unified) and the Communist Party of Nepal-Prachanda Maoist Center.
President Xi sent Guo Yezhou of China, believed to have helped the two sides merge in 2018, to help the two factions reconcile their differences. Guo Yezhou landed on Sunday and hours later met with President Bidya Bhandari and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli.
Yesterday, he met with the three former prime ministers of the rival camp, Prachanda, Madhav Nepal and Jhananath Khanal, and the head of the Janata Samajbadi Party, Baburam Bhattarai.
On Tuesday, the Chinese delegation met with former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, who heads the Nepali Congress of the country’s largest opposition party.
Observers from Nepal said that the Chinese delegation, which had begun exploring the possibility of keeping the communist party in Kathmandu, appeared to have concluded that the differences between the two rival factions were irreconcilable and had also discussed the possibility of a settlement between the faction led by the communist party. by Prachanda and Madhav Nepal and other political parties like the Congress of Nepal and the Janata Samajbadi Party in case the Supreme Court overturns the dissolution of parliament.
Prime Minister Oli had surprised the Chinese at their meeting on Sunday when he rejected a suggestion that his cabinet should rescind its recommendation to the president to dissolve parliament.
“In China’s Plan B, it appears that Prime Minister Oli is the common enemy,” said a diplomat tracking events in Nepal, indicating that Prime Minister Oli’s rivals could be expected to target Prime Minister Oli’s credentials. . Prime Minister Oli had led the communist party to victory in the 2017 elections on the basis of a nationalist agenda.
“There will be an attempt to erode their credibility over the next few weeks and months,” the diplomat added.
China has refuted criticism about interference in Nepal’s internal affairs, insisting that Guo Yezhou’s team was alone in Kathmandu to deepen relations between the two countries’ political parties.
“As a friend of the country and close neighbor, we hope that relevant parties in Nepal will be able to take into account national interests and the bigger picture, properly manage internal differences and commit to political stability and national development,” the spokesman said Tuesday. of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China. .
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