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Kathmandu Thursday May 03, 2001 Baishakh 20, 2058.
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The fuzzy road ahead
By Suman Pradhan
KATHMANDU, May 2 - If Prime Minister Girija
Prasad Koirala ever had nightmares, then this must have been it: the Commission for
Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) ordering him to furnish information about his
role in the controversial Lauda Air jet lease deal.
Now the nightmare has turned into reality.
The CIAA, to almost everyone’s surprise, delivered just such a letter Wednesday to
the 78 year-old prime minister, throwing the stability of his government in doubt and
creating a crisis of confidence all around.
Will Koirala resign? Or, will he hang tough?
The CIAA after all hasn’t indicted him, hasn’t found him guilty of anything yet.
It has only asked him to furnish some "clarifications," according to a source in
the anti-corruption watchdog agency.
But the "clarifications" are being
sought on arcane matters of airplane leasing practices, airline schedules and privileged
communication between the prime minister and his minister. In other words, the CIAA
questions already imply that Koirala was involved in the deal in some way without
explicitly stating as such.
This being Nepal, it is difficult to guess
what happens next. The whole case may just fizzle out, as has happened inexplicably
numerous times before, especially with CIAA investigations.
Assuming that the probe inches closer to the
prime minister, he could still just hang on to power, as is being egged on by his cabinet
and advisors. Or he could quit, honouring his own previous utterances. Either way, the
prime minister’s political future is sealed.
If Koirala quits, then, given his age and
image, there is little chance of staging a comeback once the CIAA clears him, if at all.
And if he hangs on to power, then it would be nearly impossible to govern, having lost
whatever legitimacy he had the moment the CIAA letter landed at his door.
Under this scenario, it is not difficult to
see how the opposition and rival groups within his own party, already gunning for
Koirala’s head as it were, would deal with a "morally challenged" prime
minister.
The immediate fallout of the CIAA letter,
however, will be on the governing Nepali Congress party where jockeying to succeed Koirala
has already begun. Koirala staked his political legacy on finding a suitable successor.
That task is still unfinished.
His first choices have little clout in the
party. His other choices, like Defense Minister Mahesh Acharya, though a rising young
turk, still has formidable opposition to contend with. That leaves the field for Deputy
Prime Minister Ram Chandra Poudel, who could be the logical choice of the Koirala camp to
succeed the septuagenarian leader.
But once Koirala is gone, the glue binding
his camp together could also fall apart, diminishing Poudel’s chances to win over the
eventual Congress parliamentary party leadership battle against fierce Koirala critic Sher
Bahadur Deuba. In any case, Poudel has yet to win over the core group of Koirala
supporters - the so-called kitchen cabinet - which makes the leadership battle all the
more difficult.
But all this is assuming that Koirala makes way.
There is growing possibility that he won’t, not until indicted by the CIAA at the
least. And that can only mean more gridlock inside and outside parliament.
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