The mindset displayed by leaders of major political parties in the past two months makes it clear that the old leaders are still not ready to change and reform their parties as per the spirit of the Gen Z uprising. Nepali youths aspired for a transformation of Nepali politics. When the Gen Z uprising toppled the government, made leaders flee their homes, hide in shelters at unknown places, it sent a chill down the leaders’ spines. Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba renounced his executive role in the party and appointed Vice-President Purna Bahadur Khadka as acting president. CPN (Maoist Centre) chair Puspa Kamal Dahal gave up his party chairmanship and declared himself coordinator of a committee to convene a general convention and elect a leadership of the party. Many saw the decisions of Deuba and Dahal positively, despite them being widely seen as too little too late.

But within weeks, these leaders are again showing their true colours. In the Congress, the establishment faction led by Acting President Khadka has employed every tactic to prolong its stay in power. The majority of party representatives, led by two general secretaries, Gagan Thapa and Bishwa Prakash Sharma and senior leader Sekhar Koirala, have demanded the party’s general convention ahead of the March 5 parliamentary elections in order to institute radical changes in the organisation. But Deuba’s hanger-ons, such as Khadka, Krishna Prasad Sitaula, Bimalendra Nidhi, and Prakash Sharan Mahat, are dead against the convention before the March 5 polls. They don’t want to loosen their grip on the party’s resources. More importantly, their key interest is to distribute election tickets to candidates close to them.

The announcement of Dahal, who has been party chief for nearly four decades, to renounce the Maoist Centre’s chair has been proven false again. It has become clear that he didn’t want to relinquish power to other Maoist leaders through the general convention. Thus, he rather chose to gather leaders from various political parties and announced unity among them.

During Wednesday’s unity announcement, Dahal and Madhav Kumar Nepal of the CPN (Unified Socialist) were flanked by leaders from little-known groups with little or no public support. Most of these parties don’t even have a single parliamentary seat. Dahal and Nepal chose to join hands with them while leaving behind some influential leaders such as Janardan Sharma and Ram Karki of the Maoist Centre and Ghanashyam Bhusal and Ram Kumari Jhakri from the Unified Socialist. The two party chiefs didn’t feel the need to convince and take them along because the likes of Sharma, Karki, Bhusal and Jhakri raised voices against the leaders’ questionable activities and pressed them for leadership handover.

The situation in the CPN-UML is even more pessimistic as party chief KP Sharma Oli has not even accepted the significance of the Gen Z revolt, let alone consider reforms in the party. “Why correct myself? Have I made any mistakes?” was one of his first remarks after resigning and fleeing from the prime minister’s residence. This reaction reflects his mindset that there is no need for any reforms in the UML.

If these leaders give continuity to this tendency against Nepali people’s valid aspiration for reforms, it is going to further complicate the country’s political course. This is unfortunate and unacceptable. This way, they can’t even win the trust of their party members let alone the general public. This will be a great betrayal of scores of Nepali citizens who sacrificed their lives to kick out the old guard and initiate meaningful reforms in national policy.