Nepali president summons lower house to session
Nepal’s House of Representatives will meet today following a landmark Supreme Court verdict to reinstate the country’s lower house of parliament.
President Bidya Devi Bhandari summoned today’s session of the 275-member legislative body after Nepal’s Supreme Court ruled against the constitutionality of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s unilateral move to dissolve the House in December and call for an early election. With parliament reinstated, Oli—leader of Nepal’s governing Communist Party—faces an impending no-confidence vote.
While the PM’s lawyers claim that he will respect the Supreme Court’s ruling, the country is unlikely to see an abatement to its political drama. Oli’s decision to dissolve parliament arose from internal fighting among Communist Party officials over appointments to human rights and anti-corruption commissions. The prime minister’s likely ouster will not settle these political divisions, which have brewed for some time within the governing party. Indeed, in the medium term, these divisions, should they persist, could lead to a rollback of the party’s legislative gains from its landslide 2017 electoral victory.
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