NATIONAL 3 -(Spotlight Weekly)

Fight To The Finish

Widening internal rifts push the CPN-ML to the verge of a split

By KESHAB POUDEL

When loyalists of the founding general secretary of CPN-ML C.P. Mainali declared a boycott of their general convention on Sunday (December 10), the process of disintegration of the party began.

The divisions in the CPN-ML proves that the future of a breakaway party is not always certain.

Although some centrists in the party are still desperately trying to avert a formal split, their room for hope is narrowing. A large number of workers who came with Mainali and Bam Dev Gautam, breaking away from the CPN-UML, have already deserted the party.

"Our party will not split although some individuals may leave the organization," thundered Gautam, the incumbent general secretary of the CPN-ML.

convention of CPN-ML : Shrouded by controversies

When the firebrand Gautam split the CPN-UML two years ago to form the CPN-ML, many hoped that the new party would usher in a new era in Nepal's heavily splintered communist movement. Instead of providing an alternative, the CPN-ML is today struggling for its own survival.

The blame game has been going on for quite some time. "It is Bamdevji who is responsible for the present situation," said Tanka Karki, a close associate of Mainali. "The CPN-ML will survive but without any conspirator."

The CPN-ML is not the first breakaway party which is on the verge of collapse. In the last decade, all splinter groups have collapsed one after another after having survived no more than a couple of years.

"We will find a compromise formula between Mainali and Gautam. There is no question of a division of the party," said Ashok Rai, a CPN-ML politburo member.

As Gautam has already distributed his criticism of Mainali's separate political paper, it seems virtually impossible to bring them together now.

Although Gautam and Mainali joined hands to split the CPN-UML in 1998 and form the CPN-ML, differences began emerging just a few months later over who was going to be general secretary.

The arithmetic was clear: Gautam had a large number of hard-core cadres in the party, while Mainali, one of the ideologues of the Nepalese communist movement, did not find many supporters.

With a crushing defeat in the 1998 general elections -- the CPN-ML failed to win a single seat in the House of Representatives -- the Mainali group started what amounted to a crusade for the removal of Gautam.

From the Nepali Congress to Rastriya Prajatantra Party, CPN-UML and United People's Forum, all parties have tasted the bitterness of splits.

The first to split was the Nepali Congress under the banner of former Congress supremo Ganesh Man Singh, who backed Jaganath Acharya's Jan Congress. After Singh's death, the Jan Congress merged with the Nepali Congress.

The RPP was born divided in the Surya Bahadur Thapa and Lokendra Bahadur Chand factions. The two parties united within a couple of years only to part ways again. When the Chand group faced a humiliating election defeat in 1998, it reunited with the Thapa group.

The United People Forum also split following the mid-term elections under the leadership of Dr. Baburam Bhattarai and Lilamani Pokharel. Dr. Bhattarai's group merged with the Nepal Communist Party-Maoist and Lilamani won the House of Representatives elections.

While the CPN-ML may be the latest actor in Nepal's political splinter saga, it provides a clear lesson that a break-up may not always be the answer to dissent and disenchantment.