EC Preparations

FIXING the date for the constituency assembly elections is high on the agenda of the eight mainstream political parties. Everyone is concerned as to when the date would be announced with the consensus of the eight political parties. This is very crucial as the Election Commission (EC) has already suggested mid-November as a suitable time for the polls. At an interaction with the leaders of the political parties on Wednesday, Chief Election Commissioner Bhoj Raj Pokhrel stressed on a free and fair environment so that the election can be held successfully because the whole exercise depends on the massive participation of the people freely and without fear. According to the updated voters' list, there are 17.6 million eligible voters. This shows that the EC is going ahead with its preparatory works so that it can really swing into action as son as the dates for the CA polls are announced. It has also said that the date should be announced by mid-June so that the election could be held by mid-November. This issue must be seriously taken up by the political parties concerned.

Instead of dilly-dallying, the eight-party leaders must be straightforward in reaching a consensus. Meanwhile, the necessary legal tools are also not in place because of the disruptions of the legislature parliament proceedings. The House proceedings must, therefore, be made smooth so that the necessary laws related to the polls can be put in place. This issue must be taken up seriously by all the concerned. With the House not being able to sit, the problems for holding the polls are obvious. All the legislators who have been disrupting the proceedings must come up for dialogue with the concerned to sort out the issues. That will make it possible for the proceedings to continue so that many laws registered could be passed, including the laws related to the elections. If this is done and the date for the polls announced, the people will feel assured that their mandate has been followed. It is also necessary that the eight-party leaders sit down together to see that the CA polls are held as per the date that has been floated around. Only fruitful talks among them can break the deadlock so that the EC could really begin its task in earnest to see that the elections are held in a free, fair and impartial manner as per the aspirations of the people.

Source: The Rising Nepal, June 1, 2007

CA Polls : Seriousness Must Emerge

Prem N. Kakkar

For the legislature parliament proceedings to be stalled for a month and a half is a matter of great concern. For the House - that came into existence with the tacit approval of the eight political parties - to come to this state is rather unfortunate. When so many agreements were made to come to this point, the leaders of the said parties must come to terms with the reality of the country.

Election laws

Though the Maoist legislators have said that they would not disrupt the proceedings, the Madhesi MPs have not relented and are going ahead with their demands, although a review of the constituency report has been agreed upon by the eight parties. This may possibly pave the way for the House meetings to continue. It is urgent for the House to convene as early as possible because a number of election-related draft laws have yet to be discussed. The longer the delay in the parliament meetings, the greater the delay in the constituency assembly polls.

It mist be remembered herein that the Election Commission has already said that it needs over a hundred days to make full preparations for the polls after the announcement of the election date. The parties must be serious on this matter. It is said that the eight party leaders have tentatively agreed on holding the CA polls by mid-November, but no official statement has yet been issued so far.Even the eight party parleys have been stalled for the same length of time. Some parties were up in arms as soon as the Election Commission had said that the CA polls could not be held by mid-June. It obviously meant that the date had to be shifted. Soon after, the Maoists demanded that a republic be declared from the parliament itself while the CA polls could be held later. But there is no total agreement on the issue. The Nepali Congress (NC) has always been insisting that the first meeting of the constituent assembly would decide the fate of the monarchy, so it was prudent on the part of all to focus on the CA polls. That is in a sense the right assessment as the issue had been agreed upon earlier among the eight party leaders.

For any party to sidetrack from the earlier commitment is not right. The parties concerned must moot over the issue and arrive at a consensus as soon as possible. If it takes longer to decide on the date of the polls, there will be further confusion among the people. They must understand that they have to work as per the mandate given to them by the people with the April uprising. It is a serious issue and cannot be ignored by the parties concerned. The delay in holding the CA polls can prove counterproductive as it will give the regressive elements an opportunity to regroup and play mischief.Moreover, talking about the monarchy at this juncture is not necessary as the first meeting of the CA will decide on it. By dwelling on this issue at the moment, one is only creating confusion. Instead of this, there are more pressing issues to be looked into including the demands of the agitating groups particularly from the Terai. The issue of constituency delineation has to be the focus at the moment. Instead of talking of a third Jana Andolan, works must be initiated to consolidate the gains made so far and institutionalising them. This can be done by fixing a date for the CA polls. There are contentious issues, but they must be resolved through talks.

Law and order

Another factor that needs special attention is the law and order situation. It must definitely improve before the elections can be held. This will remove the apprehension of the people in the run up to the polls. The recent spate of violence seen in many parts of the country ought to be checked. Every group may have its set of demands, but they have to resolved through talks instead of demonstrations and bandhs, which have often turned violent. The parties concerned, too, must make every effort so that any sort of violence is controlled.Now it is on the shoulders of the eight party leaders to resolve their differences and agree on a date for the CA election, and for the legislature parliament to begin its normal functions.

Source: The Rising Nepal, June 1, 2007

Voters' Education And Current State Of Affairs

C. D. Bhatta

In this piece, I am putting down some of the empirical thoughts on the current state of affairs that came into limelight during the course of my field visits to different parts of the country as part of voters' education and civic rights programme. The programme was organised by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), a German think tank in Kathmandu, with the help of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Respect for others

The overarching aim of the voters' education programme was to train and educate the local people on contemporary political issues such as civic rights, democracy, constituent assembly (CA) election, current state of affairs and trickle down of knowledge to the grass root level. The central logic of this programme was to lay emphasis on the fact that democracy only works when it promotes local situations, local values based on social justice and solidarity, and there is a balance between two types of rules - written and unwritten - of society.

Equally important is the culture of respecting others (opposition parties) that play a great role in expanding the democratic sphere. It is because, in a democracy, every opposition of today moves into the helm of power tomorrow, and every party that is in power today might have to sit in the opposition bench tomorrow. This means democracy cannot be owned by a particular party for a long time but can only be rented for sometime. Likewise, democracy is all about sharing the burden of each other, that is, those in a society having a broader shoulder have a responsibility to carry those who have smaller shoulders. Dev Raj Dahal, a noted political scientist, is of the view that the decision to hold the constituent assembly election in Nepal has made Nepalese politics open-ended. There is increased citizens' participation in state affairs, but the state has or is not in a position to develop its own capacity to guarantee participation.

Political power has been transformed from the king to the eight political parties, but within this 'power transformation', neither is there intergenerational justice nor is transformation felt by the citizenry at large. Today various types of transformations are taking place in the Nepali society. For example, transformation in discourse (loktantra vs. prajatantra, ganatantra vs inclusive democracy); transformation in the political parties, that is, the rise of ultra communists forces; transformation in the actors, that is, the rise of political leaders of various ideologies and suspension of the king; transformation in subjects, that is, from a unitary to a federal system of governance; and transformation in procedure, that is, promulgation of the interim constitution and initiative to hold the election to the Constituent Assembly to write a new constitution. Having said this, however, there is no clear agenda before the state as to what type of state and system of governance we really want to have at the end of the day. We talk about 'state restructuring', but it is still not clear as how we want to go about and what type of restructuring would work best for us. Merely playing with words by producing various types of political terminologies without any scientific justification is creating more confusion than resolving problems.

Principally, the main purpose of the state is to protect the weak in a society from the strong and that of politics is to address underlying problems of the society by engaging people in the institutional life of the state. Moreover, the state has a duty to maintain public order in a society, and politics should bring about changes in a society. The main logic of democratic politics, therefore, is to initiate dialogue, search for a common agreement and provide alternatives (choices) so that diverse societal demands/interests could be met. However, there is a deadlock in Nepali politics, which is apolitical. A great deal of conflict exists between the state and societal forces. The result of this conflict is that the parliament has been stalled for more than a month, interim constitution has been receiving the wrath of the opposition from different sections of society, and it had to be amended within 35 days of its promulgation. The amendment of the constitution on an installment basis does not necessarily herald a prosperous political future for the country.

We have signed a comprehensive peace accord, but conflict residues are still prevalent in society. Different types of societal groups are forming critical masses, and the state has not been able to play the role of 'state' due to which it is losing internal sovereignty to various non-state-actors. The best part of the April uprising was that the citizens have been given their rights, but there is no efficient mechanism to ensure these rights. In a sense, no attempt has been made to make the state machinery strong and prosperous so that they can meet the challenge generated by these rights.This has resulted in the erosion in the capacity of the state in different arenas - erosion in policy (no sovereign policy), erosion in state authority (rise of the non-state actors), and increase in competitive violence (rule of might). Because of these factors, the state is not in a position to fulfil the main duties of the state - protect the weak, resolve conflicts, maintain sovereign policies, including foreign, and deliver public goods.

Harmony

Against this backdrop, the challenge for the Nepali state is how best to reconcile harmony between all the conflicting ideas, concepts, norms and values without undermining the spirit of the age. An attempt should move towards providing political legitimacy to the achievement of the people's movement and constitutional legitimacy to the interim constitution in order to move the political process ahead.

Source: The Rising Nepal, June 1, 2007

Where Does The Power Lie?

Keshab Poudel

"I have to admit honestly and frankly that Nepali people no more have the decisive power. The decisive power is in New Delhi and Washington," said CPN-Maoist leader Krishna Bahadur Mahara who is also the government spokesperson as the Minister for Information and Communication. (See Kantipur May 14 and Nepal Television May 13) addressing general meeting of District Development Committee, Rolpa.

- "NC people must consider what BP Koirala had once said. Rather than going to India with a package of problems, they would have done well had they gone there with a package of solutions," said Jhalnath Khanal, reacting to the visit of NC delegation of vice president Sushil Koirala, Dr. Ram Baran Yadav and Dr. Shekhr Koirala. "I don't understand what they are up to when they go to India with a problem." (The Himalayan Times May 28)

Strangely Khanal, who criticized the visit of three Nepali Congress leaders who are reportedly in New Delhi for health check up, is himself going to be a member of CPN-UML delegation to New Delhi. According to a May 29 reporting in The Himalayan Times from New Delhi, a team of CPN-UML leaders including its general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal will arrive in New Delhi on 30 May. The members of delegation include K.P. Sharma Oli, Jhalnath Khanal, Bamdev Gautam and Ashok Rai.

As Nepal's present political situation is in a very crucial phase and internal political forces are in dispute over the announcement of elections date for Constituent Assembly, the visit of high-level party leaders of Nepal's two major political parties have definite political meaning.

The Himalayan Times –which is supposed to predict political weather coming from South – has already declared on May 27 that Koirala clan is losing its grip on the party. "In a way, the election of Pradeep Paudel as Nepal Student Union president is tantamount to a rebellion against the Koirala clan and its political ideology dating back to the 1950s," writes the daily.
According to THT, the bid is a last ditch effort by prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala who is under stepped up pressure to declare Constituent Assembly Elections.

If minister Mahara really believes upon his statement, many more questions may be raised at him. Along with other political forces, which one force led the Maoists into the power?

Prachanda's Realization

For CPN-Maoist leader Prachanda, it took a year to realize Nepal's reality. "One year after my public appearance when I met a number of capitalists, feudalists and other power centers, I have drawn the conclusion that Nepal is not like what we used to think. Eventually, we are now in a position to understand Nepal," said CPN-Maoist leader Prachanda (Kantipur May 24).

It is not clear whether they are the expressions of frustrations or expressions of real situation of the country. People in Nepal generally feel that they have come to know the Maoists in their political shape but surprisingly its supreme leader Prachanda has just started knowing what Nepal is.

The precious 15,000 lives have been lost to educate him about Nepal as he has realized now. Despite his realization, indications are that political situation in Nepal has no sign to stabilize and follow a fair and predictable process.

Past Experiences

Past experiences have shown that sooner the election is held, better for the country's over all situation. As Nepal's internal political forces are yet to agree on the date to hold the elections for CA, third party will have reasons to rejoice as its intervention will then be required to end any major political deadlock.

"Although the situation was very abnormal in the last days of Panchayat system, the upheavals of that time - which overthrew the previous order - reintroduced the multi-party parliamentary process very shortly. Within 14 months, the constitution was promulgated as a product of unique political understanding and reconciliation under which three elections for parliament were held with amazing peace and popular participation," said a political analyst.

According to the analyst, ongoing interests in the political destabilization created an opportunity to do away with that constitutional order as well as the political adjustments. "In the last phase of previous constitutional order, unfortunately, politicians ignored the consequences of cut throat competition for power which created a situation in which an inexperienced but over ambitious King played a short sighted role and the country entered into another phase of uncertainty and destabilization."

From Stable To Unstable

Following the promulgation of interim constitution, the country entered from a stable and predictable to unstable and unpredictable situation. Nobody is able to predict his/her own future now. Nobody in politics knows his/her future role. Even prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala, who sacrificed all political ideals, values, and country's interests for power, is uncertain about his position.

"As long as elected parliament was in operation, it was generally believed that entire parliament was capable of reflecting the popular will of the country and it could decide the fate of politicians. The previous constitution not only had declared the sovereign power vested into the people but it also generated belief in declaration. During the direct rule of King in the last phase, rightly or wrongly, the supreme decision making power was believed to be with the King," said the analyst.

Of course, April upsurge of last year deprived the King of that power but unfortunately no political force is sure of the center of the decisive power of this country now. In the last days of Royal regime, as a theoretician vice chairman of council of minister Dr. Tulsi Giri used to argue that there could not be two centers of power – the people and the King.

"Few days back the Maoist group leader in the cabinet and Minister for Information and Communication Mahara was on record in the media telling the people that the decisive power of this country is either in New Delhi or in Washington. Recalling Dr. Giri's statement regarding duality of the center of power to decide, it is now neither with the King nor with the people," said the analyst.

About Washington

In the words of minister Mahara, the decisive power has gone away either to Delhi or to Washington. However, while judging position of Washington, it has a very humiliating response from current events of Nepal. Prime minister Koirala completely ignored the advice of America in the process, particularly, on the decision of inclusion of Maoists in the government.

US and its ambassador James F. Moriarty, whose car was stoned Friday (May 25 in Damak Jhapa) by the members of Maoist -affiliated Young Communist League, are persistent in their position vis-à-vis Maoist party, which they term as terrorist outfit and have given no indication to budge from their stance yet. Americans denied visa to Maoist leader and still put them in US terrorist list.

Although US ambassador Moriarty was unhurt, this stoning incident, which the Maoist organization later claimed was not its planned doing, has raised a question on whose protection Maoists are waging a war against the US. In the words of vociferous Maoist leader and Minister for Forest and Soil Conservation Matrika Prasad Yadav, US ambassador Moriarty has completely failed in his attempt to block their road to power.

About New Delhi

About another power center New Delhi, there is a lot of whispering and rumors getting space in the print media that it has a lot of influence in Nepal. Actions and activities of politicians corroborate the apprehension of the people, which is not in the interest of good neighborly relationship between countries.

Series of meetings and negotiations were taking place in New Delhi before finally the 12 points agreement came to light in November of 2005. Even the recent rush to New Delhi by all leading politicians of major political parties is not properly explained to the people. Although CPN-UML leader Khanal who objected Congress leaders' visit to New Delhi a day before - is now going to New Delhi along with his party general secretary Nepal.

After looking at this entire circumstantial situation, one can guess that something covert and secretive dialogue and negotiations are going on in New Delhi. There is no sense for different political persons of Nepal to go to Delhi for dialogue and negotiations among themselves. One does not know the role of third invisible and undeclared party into that deal.

According to Nepali Congress leader Amod Upadhyay, the visit is no more than a visit for medical check up. "All of them are political figures, they might meet Indian political leaders," said Upadhyaya. Anyway, this kind of visit of politicians to a powerful neighboring country is not without definite meaning.

"The experience of the past creates a reasonable doubt in the minds of people. Perhaps minister Mahara could not betray his conscience and expressed naked fact that internal conflicts of Nepal has shifted decisive power of this country," said the analyst. "Dr. Giri's views have prevailed but in a perverted manner. Now the power is neither with the King nor with the people. It has shifted to a hegemonic center. It is very painful to believe and accept this fact. And now the uphill task for all is to clear the hostility and conflict among ourselves for a broad based national unity based upon widely accepted political process in which all will have fair opportunity to live and let live," said the political analyst.

Source: Spotlight, May, 2007

Reality Check for Nepal - Part-I

Proof by contradiction

Mathematicians often use “proof by contradiction” in order to solve difficult problems that deny straightforward answers. When it is impossible (or too difficult) to directly prove the veracity of a statement, mathematicians tactfully show its opposite to be untrue, thus proving the statement itself to be true. We are witnessing in Nepal today, a similar proof.There were many who decried the alliance between the SPA and the Maoists as “unholy”. There were many who questioned the Maoists’ commitment to “mainstream politics”. But there were more who believed otherwise, and they happened to be the ones with the loudest voice and strongest influence.

This group that controlled the media and so-called “civil society” organizations, along with the political parties, of course, led us into believing that the Maoists were dying to join peaceful, competitive politics while an arrogant and ambitious king was only using them as an excuse to consolidate his own power.If the parties were given a chance to have their way, we were told, they would deliver us a “peaceful solution” to the Maoist insurgency as opposed to the king’s “military solution”. The anti-royal regime fervor had been pumped to such feverish pitch that sensible people couldn’t even demand the bases for such lofty claims from these “peaceful-solution-walahs”.

More than a year has now passed since these “peaceful-solutionists” goaded their fellow countrymen to risk their lives and put the SPA back in the driver’s seat. Time has come around to examine their claims again.Do we have peace now? Is any solution in sight? What have been the achievements of this party-press-civil society-led route to peace (not to mention a “new Nepal”)?Events in the past one year are clearly contradicting their predictions that a “safe-landing” to the Maoists would assure us peace and a better Nepal. By contradiction then, as mathematicians might put it, the opposite (i.e., that the SPA-M alliance was indeed “unholy”, and that the Maoists couldn’t be trusted to enter the “mainstream”), are now being proved true.Let us examine more closely the fallout of the “peaceful-solution” route:

The fallout

An immediate casualty of this misguided effort was the 1990 constitution, a document once hailed as among “the best” in the world. Why anger against a king (who allegedly misused the constitution) had to translate into wholesale bashing and trashing of the constitution itself is a million-dollar question, without an answer.One could hardly come across a better example of “throwing the baby out with the bathwater”. Nonetheless, the swift annulment of the 1990 constitution exposed the dearth of ideas (to solve the insurgency) in the SPA ranks. An agenda that was brought to the fore solely on the point of guns was thoughtlessly accepted as the “only solution”.The fact that to this day, an overwhelming majority of the Nepalese people still don’t know what a constituent assembly is, clearly indicates that this “solution” was mere political expediency, not popular demand. Secondly, given that the 1990 constitution was a document that the SPA had themselves helped create, its unceremonious end exposed our “leaders” faith and conviction in their own words and deeds, and the strength (or rather lack) of their convictions.

As per the Maoists’ wishes, the UN was brought in to help resolve Nepal’s insurgency. While this was in the interests of a “terrorist group” aiming to attain the status of a “rebel force”, it would have been in the interests of all Nepalese too if the UN had been given some teeth.But when after months of waiting we finally learnt of the 10:1 ratio of combatants to arms, we began questioning the efficacy of the much-hyped “arms management” process. And now as we watch a hapless Ian Martin wailing about the stalled arms verification process (and a growling Baburam threatening to throw the UN out), we know definitively that the rebels have outfoxed the "re-instateds." While the Maoists' managed to use the UN gimmick to attain international stature, the SPA has failed to use the same to provide a sense of security to the Nepalese people.

Finally, when the CPA was signed in November, the act of legitimizing the Maoists’ 10-year brutal war— a war originally waged against parliamentary democracy— was completed. In the preamble of this document, the Maoist insurgency is placed as a continuum in the Nepali people’s struggle for freedom since “around 1950”. Hence, a war that was waged against parliamentary democracy, against the 1990 constitution, was allowed to be re-interpreted as a war solely against monarchy and feudalism.By then, of course, the SPA had removed the terrorist tags from the heads of their Maoist compatriots, freed their leaders who had been painstakingly captured by the security forces, and opened up the whole nation for them to carry out their (until then, forbidden) politics. The opposite — enabling the rest of the parties to carry out activities in hitherto forbidden space — on the other hand, has not been fulfilled to this day.

Through the “peaceful-solutionists” the Maoists managed to bag their most elusive and invaluable goal: legitimacy, recognition as an open political party. But what invaluable goal did the SPA wrench off in return?And yet the unconditional give-aways to the Maoists didn’t stop there. Thence forward, they were brought into parliament, an interim constitution formed as per their wishes, and they were even given ministerial berths to run the country. Those people who’d murdered innocent Nepalis, including cadres of the SPA themselves (and who had not garnered any votes of the Nepalese people) were given the privilege of delineating our destinies purely on the strength of their guns. The use of violence for political gain was not only legitimized, but rewarded with a resounding thump.

The result is open for all to see. Every little group—student or trade union, ethnic forum, indigenous group, teachers’, dealers’, drivers’, displaceds’ anybody’s association, is using the same means to achieve their goals.The state lies effete as every interest group uses abhorable, anti-social means to achieve their narrow interests. Faith in industry, discipline, hardwork, fair-play, truth and justice has been smashed to smithereens and ability to exploit the situation to one’s advantage by any means (including violent ones) have been proven as the qualities that succeed. Through all the ups-and-downs of our 240-year history, Nepalese have probably never been more demoralized than we are today. To be sure, we are closer to state-failure today than at any point in our history.

But make no mistake, the confusion, turmoil, uncertainty, anarchy and anomie that exist today are, in reality, a Maoist’s dream. There is room to assert that the Maoists deliberately seek to use this situation to discredit and destroy the parliamentary system in Nepal—their original goal. Through the “peaceful-solution” route the Maoists have achieved what they couldn’t with ten years of armed struggle from the jungles.

Then and now

Without doubt the Maoists have made good of the break offered to them by the “peaceful-solution” beatniks. Compared to where they were in early 2006, they have moved up in leaps and bounds.By early 2006, the PLA had been reduced to a hit-and-run outfit that could only snap at the heels of a strengthening and maturing national army. The Maoists’ money-bags were fast drying up since they’d been swept clean out of the cities, the centers of extortion. A sense of impending defeat, and disillusion with Maoist ideology were leading their guerillas to surrender in hordes.

The impossibility of military takeover and inevitability of the shattering of the PLA changed hardcore believers of armed struggle into pragmatists who latched on to the SPA, their original enemies, for survival. Spurned by the king, and egged on by the “peaceful-solution” idealists the SPA took the bait.The current situation is a stark reversal of fortunes. The Maoist cantonments are over-stuffed with fake recruits, while their guerillas have reincarnated as the YCL. The common Nepali’s tax-money is paying for the sustenance and salary of these fake guerillas while extortions have resumed afresh in the cities.

Fake soldiers in cantonments have become a bigger bargaining chip than guerillas in the jungles could ever be, and what’s more, we, the people, are paying for it! Property seized during the conflict have not been returned to rightful owners, instead Maoists are busy amassing more property – royal, public or private.While arms management was the loudest, clearest call of the Nepalese people before, during and after the Jana Andolan, it is the one demand being pushed off all the time, while Maoists continually obtain whatever they ask for.

Source: Nepali Perspective, May 31, 2007