Nepal meets criteria for democracy

After deciding that Nepal meets criteria for democracy, transparency and governance, a donor government wants to give the country $500 million to improve transmission lines and highways. Governments of major parties all enthusiastically endorsed the deal in the last eight years.

But now the grant from the Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is stuck because it has become a political football in the power struggle between two top ruling party leaders.

Prime Minister K P Oli and former Maoist supremo Pushpa Kamal Dahal are competing for power, influence and succession within the Nepal Communist Party (NCP). Disgruntled former UML leaders like Bhim Rawal say the MCC is a sellout to the United States. Geopolitics is a factor because the MCC is seen as America’s response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

At the NCP Central Committee meeting last week, Dahal praised the BRI but was silent on the MCC, while Oli spent 30 minutes of his two-hour speech defending the grant. He said: “We need transmission lines. If the Americans want to build them for free, what’s the problem? I want to assure comrades that there are no strings attached.”