KIRAN PANDAY

The disorientation of the Nepali Congress is beginning to show. The party was so demoralised by its election upset that it still keeps showing what a sore loser it is.

Girija Koirala, until he was hospitalised this weekend, was trying to be a serious nuisance. After flirting with Maoists and courting the UML, Koirala now wants to build a 'democratic' front with jaded Panchayat-era politicos. With the Maoists taking on former royalists as advisers, this new alignment was an equal and opposite reaction. But kangresi loyalists wedded to the ideology of nationalism, democracy and socialism may find it hard to stomach a political coalition of Sher Bahadur Deuba, Pashupati Samsher Rana and Surya Bahadur Thapa.

Koirala is probably hoping that an alliance with traditionalists will secure the future of his family in politics. But it's a zero sum game. Such a step may also mean a complete eclipse of the NC from the national scene. If an unlikely grouping of former panchas and discredited kangresis were really to emerge, its leadership would logically go to Marichman Singh or Lokendra Bahadur Chand rather than to Sujata Koirala or other Koirala uncles and cousins.

The NC was always a bit lost after BP but now it suffers from acute ideological confusion. This muddle-headedness starts right at the top. There was no reason for Koirala to lead the parliamentary party. He could have willingly put himself through a party election to show that there is internal democracy in the party. By imposing himself upon his party ("I am the parliamentary leader of the NC as I assumed the prime minister's post for four months after the Constituent Assembly elections") he did himself no favours. It just proved our worst suspicions about him.

In more settled times, the NC could have continued with the contradictions inherent in any centrist party. But today, its main challenge comes from the radical left. The NC's right-wing leanings help the Maoists consolidate their populist agenda. The NC has to be a much more focused and disciplined party if it is to project itself as a true alternative to the Maoists.

The only way kangresis can reclaim some of their lost glory is to be the true vanguard of democracy in a polity that is seriously drifting towards extremism. For this, the party itself must go back to its social democratic ideological roots. And it must allow internal democracy to flourish so that a younger generation of leaders can inject new ideas and restore the hope that only through pluralism and inclusion can we have true development in Nepal.