Dr. Alok K. Bohara-------------
A brief note: The Nepali Congress’s 15th General Convention raises an institutional question I have been thinking about for some time. So, with the NC 15th convention underway, I offer this as a timely reflection rather than a verdict on where it will lead.
Preamble
James Madison once observed, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” The same might be said of political parties. Institutions are needed precisely because political actors naturally compete, form alliances, protect their interests, and seek power. We are talking about human behavior!
Observing a legacy political party like the Nepali Congress over the past three decades, two institutional habits stand out: factional arithmetic—the 60–40 quota—and inherited lineage, or family legacy. One offered political security through factional bosses; the other offered political capital through a distinguished surname.
As Gagan Thapa steps forward at Khula Manch with a new reform agenda—promising primary elections, term limits, and open candidate selection—the central story of this convention is not merely generational renewal. The deeper test is whether his “New Congress” can move beyond both habits, replacing factional claims and inherited advantage with a political culture where the merit of a person is valued and rewarded.
The Test Begins at the Convention
The opening of the Nepali Congress’s 15th General Convention presents a familiar political narrative: a reformist camp, led by Gagan Thapa, stepping forward to challenge the party’s long-standing factional culture. With the movements of the NC members across two NC camps, there seems to be a gradual settling of the alignment picture seemingly in favor of Gagan.
Still, to view this convention simply as reformers versus the old guard would miss a deeper institutional story. This essay tries to unpack that story.
For decades, the Nepali Congress has been shaped by two deeply embedded habits. The first is what has often been called the “60–40 camp”—the unwritten proportional arrangement dividing tickets, central committee seats, and ministerial appointments among factional camps. The second is the politics of family legacy, where a famous surname can bring recognition, networks, and an inherited claim to political standing.
To evaluate whether Gagan Thapa can genuinely move the party forward, we should first ask how these habits evolved and what institutional problems they were trying to solve.
The 60–40 Habit: Political Insurance Becomes Entitlement
Faction-building in the Nepali Congress was not simply a moral defect. It was also a rational response to a system where political minorities lacked reliable institutional protection. In many organizations, when trusted, impersonal rules are weak, factions emerge as an alternative source of protection. The Nepali Congress, like many other parties in Nepal, severely lacked internal democracy, making factional politics almost inevitable.
The historical progression is revealing. Ganesh Man Singh and Krishna Prasad Bhattarai possessed enormous moral authority. But as organizational power increasingly consolidated around Girija Prasad Koirala, both became politically isolated within the party. Their moral stature alone was not enough to provide a secure organizational base. Sher Bahadur Deuba belonged to the generation that watched this unfold. The institutional lesson for him was fairly clear: in a party governed heavily through relationships and strong personalities rather than impersonal rules, political survival required an organized base.
Deuba built one. The eventual Girija–Deuba rupture split the Congress, and their 2007 reunification formalized the 60–40 accommodation between the two camps. What began as a way to protect competing factions gradually hardened into a tradition of factional entitlement—my faction, my share, my candidates.
But the mechanism did not remain Deuba’s property. It became a norm that others came to expect and emulate.
Once Deuba became the establishment, the opposition led by Shekhar Koirala—and including Gagan Thapa—found itself seeking much the same protected political space after winning roughly 40 percent of the convention vote. Gagan himself rose through Shekhar’s 40-percent panel to mount his own challenge to the entrenched majority. The actors changed sides; the 60–40 institutional logic remained.
That is precisely the habit a genuinely renewed Congress should make unnecessary.
In a healthy competitive system, today’s minority should be able to lose, rebuild its coalition, compete again, and perhaps become tomorrow’s majority. The lack of internal democracy within the party helped produce the 60–40 habit in the first place. Gagan’s convention now needs to address that problem through specific institutional reforms rather than reform rhetoric alone.
Now, let me turn to the second habit: the politics of legacy.
The Legacy Habit: When Inheritance Becomes Political Capital
Family legacy works somewhat differently.
It is hardly unique to Nepal that political lineage can provide an advantage in climbing the political ladder. Nor am I questioning the talent or accomplishments of political aspirants within a party like the Nepali Congress. The institutional problem arises when transparent, rules-based paths for political advancement are weak. In such a system, the right surname can provide recognition, networks, trust, and political legitimacy that others may have to spend years building. That is when family legacy can become politically contentious.
So the contrast is simple:
The 60–40 system asks: Who stands behind you?
Family legacy asks: Whose heir are you?
It is no secret that lineage has carried considerable political currency in the Nepali Congress. That does not mean leaders with famous surnames have not earned their own political standing. Many clearly have. Above all, the sacrifices and contributions of the party’s democratic forebears must not be diminished.
Yes, an honorable inheritance can be a source of inspiration and political capital. But it should not become an automatic claim to leadership.
Interestingly, Gagan himself captured this distinction nicely at Khula Manch: “History does not give us power. History gives us lessons.”
So, does he have a plan to diminish the influence of these two deeply rooted habits?
Can Gagan’s Reforms Deliver?
The reform document emerging from Khula Manch directly addresses many of these concerns. Gagan Thapa reportedly proposes primary elections for candidate selection, term limits on the prime ministership, restrictions on pre-election alliances, voting rights for Nepalis abroad, and greater financial transparency.
These are substantial commitments.
As journalist Sudheer Sharma has perceptively asked, however, the real question is whether such proposals remain persuasive slogans or become binding rules.
The exit of talented younger voices from the Congress to newer political platforms—even while Gagan served as General Secretary—also illustrates the limits of individual goodwill inside a party shaped by entrenched factions and highly centralized leadership. Within such a system, a reform-minded leader may have limited ability to bring about transformative change or even create unshackled space for progressive minds and talents. Gagan himself has acknowledged that he was unable to implement many of the reforms he had promised. He accepted his inability to budge the leadership toward reform.
There is also another side worth acknowledging. The remaining Deuba camp presents the current dispute partly as a question of institutional procedure and legality, not simply factional entitlement. Whatever one thinks of that argument, it should not be confused with the broader 60–40 problem.
Regardless of how the Nepali Congress arrived at this point, the ball is now in Gagan’s court.
The Harder Test
Moving the Nepali Congress meaningfully forward therefore requires something more difficult than replacing one generation with another. It requires replacing a person-centric system with a process-centric one.
That is, a durable reform would have to accomplish at least three things.
First, protect the loser. Losing an internal contest should not threaten one’s political existence. Today’s 40 should be able to become tomorrow’s 60 without needing permanent protection from a factional boss.
Second, constrain the winner. Control of the party machinery should not provide unlimited control over candidate lists, appointments, or political spoils.
Third, make political advancement merit-based. Open competition should determine advancement.
There is also an important irony here. Gagan Thapa himself rose through the system of panels and factions he now seeks to transform, perhaps even dismantle. That is not necessarily a contradiction. It is what makes this moment interesting.
Defeating someone else’s faction is standard politics. Building institutions that make these factional lines blurry or unnecessary, on the other hand, is genuine reform.
That remains Gagan Thapa’s harder test. And if the Congress can actually do it, the experiment may offer lessons far beyond its own walls.
Dr. Alok K. Bohara, Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of New Mexico, writes as an independent observer of Nepal’s democratic evolution through the lens of complexity and emergence science. His systems-policy essays on Nepal’s socio-economic and political landscape appear on Nepal Unplugged.
