After struggling for weeks to expand the Cabinet, the prime minister and top leaders of the major ruling coalition partners are now closing in on a power-sharing deal.
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal will expand his Cabinet by Wednesday if not Tuesday, said sources at the prime minister’s secretariat. According to sources, Dahal is now for inducting ministers at least in key ministries, even if he fails to give the Cabinet a full shape.
Currently, in charge of 16 ministries, Dahal is running the government with the help of five ministers and a minister of state. Of them, five are from his own party and one is from the Janamat Party.
To expand the Cabinet, the prime minister has called a meeting of the ruling coalition on Tuesday afternoon, based on an understanding reached with the top leaders of the major coalition partners at a meeting on Monday.
Dahal, on Monday, held discussions over power-sharing with Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba and CPN (Unified Socialist) chair Madhav Kumar Nepal, at Baluwatar. According to members of the prime minister’s Secretariat, Dahal wanted to expand his Cabinet at the latest by Tuesday, if all the coalition partners agreed to a broader power-sharing deal agreed among the top leaders. But not all coalition partners are convinced with the proposed deal as they are demanding not only more ministries but also the portfolios of their choice.
“We discussed the Cabinet expansion today, but things are yet to be settled,” Madhav Kumar Nepal, chair of the CPN (Unified Socialist), told the Post after a tripartite meeting on Monday. “I think it will take two or three more days for the prime minister to expand his Cabinet. However, some ruling coalition leaders are blaming the Unified Socialist, besides the Congress, for the delay, as the latter is struggling to finalise its nominees for ministers.
The Unified Socialist, which has only 10 seats in the House of Representatives, has been demanding three ministries, including one among Home, Finance and Physical Infrastructure and Transportation. Other coalition partners don’t want the party to be given so much weight. The Unified Socialist has also failed in becoming a national party by garnering only three per cent of the total valid votes cast under the proportional representation category in the last parliamentary elections.
