National 3 (Spotlight Weekly)

Back to Power

The veteran leader faces his toughest challenge yet in his fifth term in office

By KESHAB POUDEL

When Surya Bahadur Thapa returned from the Royal Palace on Wednesday evening to his home at Maligaun after being appointed as prime minister, his elder daughter saw the moment as the eighth wonder. With tears in her eye, he kissed and hugged Thapa.

Thapa's daughter was not alone in expressing surprise over his appointment. Till a couple of days ago, he was just a retired politician with little hope of ever heading the government again. After his retirement from the Rastriya Prajatantra Party presidentship, Thapa put himself in low profile.

Prime Minister Thapa : Stars on his side

At age 78, most of his political colleagues seemed to have lost hope in his political resurgence. But Thapa surprised many when King Gyanendra appointed him prime minister, rejecting the five-party alliance's consensus candidate, CPN-UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal.

Known as a shrewd operative of Nepalese politics, Thapa knows the tricks of the trade. And he has the remarkable record of having become prime minister whenever there is a crisis in the country. Regarded as the pre-eminent liberal politician within the Panchayat fold, Thapa is said to be a trusted man of one of the powerful blocks in Nepal's political equations.

Although he met King Gyanendra a few days before the announcement of political movement by the five political parties, no one expected Thapa to stun the nation in this way. This is not the first time Thapa has outpaced the race, though.

In 1979 when hundreds of students belonging to the Nepali Congress and the communist parties launched a joint movement and forced the King to announce the referendum, Thapa took charge as prime minister. When Nepali Congress student leader Bal Bahadur K.C. and his communist counterparts Kailash Karki and Saran Vikram Malla were smeared with soot and taken around the city in a cart for allegedly having sold out to the government, Thapa found himself catapulted to the premiership. He led the Panchayat camp to 55-45 percent victory in the referendum, a result critics say his government clearly manipulated.

Thapa became premier again in 1997 when the Nepali Congress his faction of the RPP in parliament to lead the government. At that time, the Chand-UML coalition did everything to rig the local elections. This time, too, when police broke the skull and limbs of Congress and Communist workers, Thapa reaped dividends.

Whether during his first three tenures in Panchayat system or two tenures under multi-party democracy, Thapa has always emerged from the backroom to the center of power whenever there is a political confrontation.

Thapa has never been a palace favorite since has always remained a critic of the people surrounding the monarch. But he is not a critic in the league of Koirala or Nepal. Political forces treat him as a villain but he has always remained in the center of power.