Chinese envoy meets Nepal’s top leadership amid political crisis

Kathmandu, Nov 19 (IANS) At a time when the political crisis inside Nepal’s ruling Communist Party deepens, Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi met top political leadership in Nepal and pressed them to remain united while communicating the message from Beijing.
Power struggle inside the ruling party deepens in Nepal after party Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda presented a 19-pages long political report in party Secretariat meeting on Friday accusing another party Chair and Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli for creating a mess in the party and the government.
Political analysts have raised concerns over repeated Chinese meddling in Nepal politics.
Prachanda, in his political document accused Oli for ignoring the party’s decision, failed to lead the government and the party, promoting nepotism in the government, promoting corruption among others.
To discuss the internal crisis, Prachanda as the party Chair, called a party Secretariat meeting on Wednesday but Oli refused to participate in the meeting demanding withdrawal of Prachanda’s political report. The nine-member Secretariat is the most powerful body inside the ruling party where Oli is in minority with four member support.
Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting after Oli refused to participate in Secretariat meeting, some leaders fear that party will split. Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Hou met with President Bidhya Devi Bhandari, Prime Minister Oli, Prachanda among other leaders and advised to remain united, as Beijing is concerned about the “political stability” in Nepal.
Hou also used a similar kind of circuit and met with top leaders of Nepal Communist Party in July and May and pressed them with similar kind of concern.
Hou met Oli at PM’s residence for one and half-hour on Tuesday evening, according to several Nepali media reports, then Oli went to meet with President Bidhya Devi Bhandari to discuss his possible political steps. President Bhandari, who was elected from Oli’s party, is known as Oli’s sympathizer.
Sources inside the ruling party told IANS that Chinese Ambassador also met with President Bhandari and inquired about how the tension inside the ruling party can be defused as Chinese leaders in Beijing also equally worried about the situation inside Nepal.
Ahead of the meeting with Oli, Hou met with Prachanda, the ruling party leader said, she communicated the similar political message to Prachanda that Beijing wants to see a unified communist party and stable government in Nepal.
Taranath Dahal, a political analyst said that Oli has surrendered with Chinese ambassador to be protected from the weapon thrown by Prachanda and Madhav Nepal. With this, the government of Oli unlikely to unseat because the unity of Nepal Communist Party is overtaken by the Chinese Communist Party.

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