The swift action of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) to strip its controversial leader Dhaka Kumar Shrestha of party membership for an alleged case of corruption is appreciable. Days after the publication of an audio record, in which he is purportedly seeking financial help from a businessman to purchase a ministership, the party completed its internal inquiry and took disciplinary action, a rarity in the Nepali politics where parties routinely shield their corrupt members. Kudos. But the rest of the messaging in the whole affair was more muddied. RSP chair Rabi Lamichhane, adept at hitting the right emotional notes of populism, covered two opposite ends of the same emotional spectrum on Wednesday at a press conference to announce the party’s verdict. He was at once boastful and pitiable, ready to play the strongman and the victim in alternate sentences in his speech. And with the campaigning for by-elections in three constituencies well underway, he knew what works to elicit public sympathy and votes.

But his carefully orchestrated press conference left a few crucial questions unanswered: Is there indeed a “core team”, as the now dishonoured party member says in the audio, which collects money to appoint ministers? And if there is, does it also collect money to make members of parliament through the proportional representation system? After all, Shrestha was himself appointed through the system. Although the party would not be interested in investigating these matters for the obvious risk of having its skeletons, if any, tumbling out of the closet, these are the questions that the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), which is learnt to have launched an investigation into the RSP scandal, should ask.

Interestingly, the apparent rot among the political class has been brought to light by a highly controversial businessman. The CIAA should thank Durga Prasai for bringing the muck out but also investigate him thoroughly to check whether he has financed other politicians in return for policy favours like the one he was supposedly expecting from Shrestha. Moreover, it should investigate whether Shrestha has similarly sought money from other businesspersons.

The current RSP controversy should not, however, be seen as one-off. If the authorities mandated with investigating graft cases are to work a bit hard, they might help unravel a pandora's box of corruption among political parties, from selling tickets for first-past-the-post parliamentary seats to proportional representation ones. The latter is an obvious point of reference, as it is no secret that political parties hand these seats over to deep-pocketed businesspersons, rather than people belonging to diverse communities underrepresented in Nepali politics. Parties also rather arbitrarily nominate members of parliament through proportional representation, as they do not stick to the sequence in their original list of candidates. In doing so, they undo the idea of inclusion and equity that was the very basis for adopting a proportional representation system.

An obvious suspicion among the masses is that these seats are “sold” in exchange for cash or other economic rewards. The CIAA would do well to widen the scope of its investigation into Shrestha in this direction to make sure the electoral and parliamentary democratic processes are not sabotaged by an illicit nexus of wealthy businesspersons and greedy politicians.