Nepal‘s quiet, barely known chief justice is on the verge of taking almost total control of the Himalayan nation, becoming the interim head of government as well as the top judge in a country that has been without a legislature for months.
It seems to be the only thing the country’s furiously feuding politicians can agree on, even though one of them calls the move “flawed in every way.”
Paralyzed by political gridlock for months, Nepal‘s four biggest political parties have turned to Khilraj Regmi to take over as prime minister and guide it through long-delayed elections. Regmi’s own court, acting without him, is expected to issue a decision about the plan Thursday.
Lawyers and some political parties have protested the move as an affront to the separation of powers, but Nepal is in a legal vacuum. There aren’t really any rules.
A Constituent Assembly, which acted as a Parliament even as it struggled to write a constitution to turn this former war-wracked monarchy into a peaceful republic, finally expired in May after extending deadlines to finish its work four times, in vain. With no permanent constitution, the country has only the expired interim constitution to guide it.
Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), has remained in power since then, despite opposition protests that his legal hold on the office had expired as well.
Elections had been set for November 2012, but were canceled amid squabbling between the major parties.
With no one able to agree on who should lead the country into new polls, Bhattarai’s party proposed putting Regmi in charge of an interim government that would hold power until elections in June.
“The opposition parties were not going to allow our party to hold the elections and it was going to prolong the political uncertainty,” said Khimlal Devkota, of the Maoist party. “It is a way out of the political deadlock.”
Surprisingly, the three other largest parties said yes.
“We agreed to the proposal because we wanted to create the environment for elections despite knowing that it was against the constitutional process and flawed in every way,” said Dilendra Prasad Badu, a spokesman for the Nepali Congress, the second-largest party.