It's A Game Of Chairs For Power In Nepal: A Timeline

Nepal is going through another round of political instability as incumbent PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who survived four trust votes, lost vote of confidence in Parliament after 19 months. The country has seen 13 governments ever since monarchy was abolished and republic proclaimed in 2008.

Hyderabad: Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli, chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) is set to become Prime Minister for the second time as incumbent Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' has failed to secure a vote of confidence during a floor test in Parliament.

Nepal, which has witnessed frequent political turmoil, has seen 13 different governments since 2008, the year when monarchy was abolished and the country became a republic. Here's a timeline of the political crisis the country faced in the last 16 years.

• The beginning: Since 2008, all the governments in the Himalayan nation have been coalitions of two or more parties, giving rise to instability.
• First Constituent Assembly elections held in 2008: The Maoists, who joined mainstream politics following the peace deal of 2006, emerged as the largest political force. Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who spearheaded the decade-long insurgency until 2006, was appointed the prime minister in the ruling coalition involving the UML.
• 2009: Dahal resigned after president Ram Baran Yadav revoked his decision to fire Army chief Rookmangad Katawal.
• UML-Congress Coalition Govt: The UML and the Congress then formed a coalition with Madhav Kumar Nepal, who was defeated in the 2008 polls in two constituencies but was nominated to the Assembly later, as its head.
• Then the CPN-UML joined forces with Nepali Congress with Madhav Kumar Nepal as its leader.
• 2010: Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned in June 2010 under Maoist pressure after which, Jhala Nath Khanal of his party succeeded him in February 2011.
• Khanal resigned after failing to make any headway in constitution writing and the management of former rebel Maoist party’s weapons and combatants. Maoist ideologue Baburam Bhattarai replaced him in August 2011.
• All three communist leaders—Nepal, Khanal and Bhattarai—became prime ministers with the backing of multiple parties. Although Bhattarai successfully settled the issue of army integration, he couldn’t lead the constitution making process to its conclusion.
• 2013: As the Constituent Assembly failed to draft the constitution by the latest deadline, Bhattarai called for fresh elections to the second Assembly. Khilaraj Regmi, the then chief justice, was appointed head of the interim government which conducted the CA elections a second time in November 2013.
• 2014: In February 2014, Sushil Koirala of the Nepali Congress was elected prime minister when his party and the CPN-UML joined hands. Eventually, it was under his tutelage that Nepal adopted a Constitution.
• Nepal gets Constitution in 2015: The post-quake situation brought all three major forces—the Congress, the UML and the Maoists—together and the country got a constitution on September 20, 2015. Koirala stepped down in October 2015 and sought fresh election.
• 2016: CPN-UML’s KP Sharma Oli led another coalition, including the Maoist Centre, Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal, and Madhesi Janadhikar Forum-Loktantrik. In July 2016, Oli resigned after the Maoists withdrew their support.
• In August 2016, Pushpa Kamal Dahal was elected prime minister with the backing of the Congress and some fringe parties. There was a power-sharing deal between the Congress and the Maoist Centre in which Dahal had to step down after the 2017 local polls.
• 2017: In June, Parliament elected Deuba as yet another coalition prime minister.
• In the same year, elections for all three tiers of the government were held. The communist alliance of the UML and Maoist Centre secured a landslide victory, mustering nearly a two-thirds majority in the federal parliament. Oli was re-elected prime minister on February 15, 2018, with the Maoists on his side.
• 2018: Both the parties merged to form the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) on May 17, 2018, with an agreement to divide the prime ministerial tenure between Oli and Dahal. But Oli refused to hand over the reins to Dahal after the first half, which eventually led to the NCP’s split.
• In a time-buying and defensive tactic, Oli dissolved the House twice, leading his comrades to side with the Congress to mount an attack on him. Oli was removed with the order of the Supreme Court and Sher Bahadur Deuba led the coalition composed mainly of Oli’s former allies from July 2021.
• 2021: On the recommendation of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, Nepal’s president dissolved the House of Representatives (HoR) in May 2021 and called for new elections in November 2022.
• 2022: In November, the country witnessed another election with Deuba’s Nepali Congress emerging as the single-largest party. However, it fell short of the majority mark and therefore had to forge a coalition. It was then that NC partnered with Prachanda’s party and others.
• 2022: Pushpa Kamal Dahal came to power in December 2022 when he aligned with arch-rival CPN-UML duping the Nepali Congress with whom he had forged alliance in the November 2022 election.
• 2023: The vote of confidence on January 10, 2023 resulted in extensive support for Dahal when he got a staggering 99 per cent vote, the highest in known history of Nepali Parliament since establishment of democracy
• 2023: In February, Oli and his party, the CPN-UML, pulled out when Prachanda supported the opposition coalition’s candidate for the presidential elections.
• 2023: Dahal dumped CPN-UML to walk out of government again aligning with Nepali Congress and managed to secure a majority in the vote of confidence in March.
• March 2024: On March 13, Dahal took his third vote of confidence after ending his nearly 15-month partnership with the Nepali Congress.
• May 2024: Dahal took his fourth confidence vote after the Janata Samajbadi Party withdrew its support.
• July 2024: Nepal's two largest parties—the Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML—have forged a midnight deal to form a new national consensus government. As per the agreement signed in between Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba and the UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli, a pact of sharing one and half year's tenure each was reached between the leaders.
• July 12, 2024: Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal losses vote of confidence in Parliament after the largest party in his coalition government withdrew its support, forcing him to step down from office after 19 months in power.

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