One of unique features of March 5, 2026 parliamentary poll is the trend of Proposing Premiers (PP) prior to approaching voters. Gagan Thapa, President of NC, former PM and CPN UML Supremo Oli and Balen Shah, former Mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City and senior leader of Rastriya Swatantra Party have already been proposed as PM by their parties. While leading parties Nepal Communist Party, Rastriya Prajatantra Party and Ujyalo Party have not yet declared their proposition for the highest post in Singha Durbar, most feel their pick-up for PM would be understood as none other than Prachanda, Rajendra Lingden and Kulman Ghising respectively. Harka Sampang, former Mayor of Dharan, and top leader of Shram Sanskriti Party, is another popular name taken widely by social media users in this regard. Going to people with the specific leadership-persona is democratic; it could produce people-endorsed PM as against the parliament-certified Head of Government. Since voters hold sovereign power of Nepal and exercise it through representatives in periodic polls, it is a great idea to finalize leadership issue in advance. Whether it will enable political stability in future or not will have to be checked in real time later. History depicts Nepali voters have given mandate to govern to all leading parties NC, CPN UML, and Maoist party in elections of different times. But the parties got lost because their leaders engaged more in the game of power politics than in governance and service delivery. Perhaps, proposing a PM in advance will make a difference in this trend because the leader concerned will be double conscious about the specific role and image. The Proposed Premier could feel more sense of accountability while pledging during polls and later functioning as Head of Government. Whether the practice of PP will contribute to making government focus more on governance-affairs than on party-affairs when voted to power is something political observers are looking for with interest. One disability found commonly in all PMs of Nepal after 1990 is: they could not draw a line of difference between running a political party organization and presiding over a country’s government machinery. All got engaged in chaotic mix-up of both; all failed to bring about a fine balance between them; all crashed in point of performance and all may have realized during Gen Z revolution of September 2025 how poorly people had evaluated their image as PM. May the practice of proposing PM early bring about a meaningful difference in the work of government and in the act of ruling party! May the same offer people an opportunity to get public service more fairly, more conveniently and more professionally without any smell of discrimination! May the experiment emerge as an effective tool to ensure a functional Executive in the real sense of the term!
