The former leader of Nepal’s Maoist rebels, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, widely known as Prachanda, was sworn in Monday as prime minister, signaling a potential foreign policy shift in the Himalayan nation caught between international powers.
KATHMANDU, Nepal — As leader of the Communist Party of Nepal , Prachanda, 68, finished third in the Nov. 20 elections behind the sitting prime minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba of the Nepali Congress, and K.P. Sharma Oli, a former prime minister who leads the Unified Marxist-Leninists. While Deuba is widely seen as pro-India and pro-America, Prachanda and Oli — the heads of warring Communist Party factions who have fallen out and rejoined forces several times — are seen as pro-China.
“China may be very much enthusiastic” about Nepal’s communist parties uniting to take power, said Lok Raj Baral, a former chairman of the Nepal Center for Contemporary Studies think tank in Kathmandu and a former ambassador to India. “But these parties also have their own limitations, and Nepal is dependent on India, even the West. These parties may also turn on each other tomorrow. It is impossible to predict anything in this country.
But the deal was criticized by Nepal’s Maoists and derided by the Chinese Foreign Ministry as Nepal receiving a poisoned “Pandora’s box” from Washington, while the State Department hit back at Beijing for meddling in its bilateral affairs with the Himalayan nation. Nepal’s foreign alignments looked markedly different during the term of Deuba’s predecessor, Oli, who served as prime minister between 2018 and 2021. He tussled with India over territorial disputes, bitterly accused New Delhi of economic blackmail and claimed Indian forces were trying to unseat him. Oli courted investment from China, including projects under the Belt and Road Initiative that have mostly failed to materialize.
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