September 2007
Political

With only two months and some days remaining for the November 22 election for the Constituent Assembly, preparations for the same are being speeded up though in weird ways.

The interim parliament’s session has been prorogued to give the workers of the political parties enough time to go to the villages and districts to canvass for the election. This gives an impression that the entire cadre-base of the political parties is limited to the sitting MPs. By extrapolation, it can be said that the leadership of the political parties is not ready to entrust the job to the cadres who are outside the parliament.

One more disturbing conclusion that can be derived is that these very MPs are most likely to be fielded as candidates also in the CA elections. It is a general knowledge that only a handful of these sitting MPs are qualified to be good CA members. The rest are feudals and virtual illiterates in the craft of Constitution making. Though the actual drafting of the Constitution may be entrusted to a body of experts, the CA members will have the final say on the Statute. Viewed from this angle, the coming Constitution can be expected to be one that continues the status quo ante.

On the very next day of the election commission declaring the election schedule, the Maoists came up with a 22-point demands accompanied by a detailed outline of programmes that they are launching to press the government to fulfil these demands. However, these do not seem to be directed to ensure fair and free elections or returning of truly wise and visionary representatives to the CA. Prominent part of the agitation planned is “people’s action”, a phrase that the Maoists used during their underground days to describe the physical action (including breaking of limbs and even killings) against all those disliked by the Maoists.

The greatest jolt on the political landscape was felt on August 24 when the Maoist leader Prachanda, addressing a gathering of different opinion leaders, suggested postponing the CA elections further till sometime in April 2008. He was categorical in stating that though the Maoists had a very strong support in June, the situation has now changed a lot. Hence the suggestion to postpone the November election. Two days later, after the statement drew strong opposition from all other political parties and the media, Prachanda denied that he even made such statement and complained that the press reported his statement in a distorted way. However, despite the denial the statement has already caused enough damage to the Maoist party. This public acceptance of the weakness of the party by the party’s supreme leader himself in so categorical terms will only encourage the general people to be bolder to come forward against the Maoists. Political analysts who till recently were estimating 10-15 percent seats for the Maoists in the forthcoming elections are revising it further downward.

Earlier, there were sporadic reports that the Maoists were parleying with the other parties for a sort of electoral alliance to ensure that the top leaders of all the parties would be automatically elected to the CA. And it was said that the parties had agreed to such an alliance though refusing to declare it officially. However, now with Prachanda’s August 24 statement, the parties are said to be in no mood to accommodate the Maoists. Such isolation, however, may force the Maoists to be more violent in the coming days in the run-up to the election.

In another weird development, the government is now going on a high speed drive to take populist decisions. Most prominent is the decision to nationalize the properties of the royal family. A cabinet committee formed the same day when the Maoists were declaring their 22-point demand, first recommended nationalization of 11 palaces including Narayanhity, Basantapur and Gorkha. Soon after, the committee recommended nationalization of Nagarjun and Gokarna forests as well as palaces at Hetauda, Chitwan and Pokhara. Also the banks and property registration offices are directed to freeze the property and bank accounts of the royal family. The decisions are weird in the sense that most of the property said to be nationalized now are already the state property and the only action needed was to take them under government control by evacuating them from royal family control.

Meanwhile, Kamal Thapa and some others who were ministers during the direct royal rule have gone to the Supreme Court challenging the law that bars them from standing as candidates in the forthcoming CA elections. The law bars all those who are named in the report by Rayamajhi Commission.

Another important development of the month was the floating of the proposed draft bill for Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The draft prepared by the Peace Ministry is criticized severely by almost all quarters including the UN and British Ambassador for a number of provisions of the draft bill that are said to be against the basic principles of such a Commission. Some of these critics even say that the time for setting up such a commission is not appropriate as yet. Such commissions are effective only after the peace is sustainably established and an environment of rule-of-law is ensured.

The latest event in the series was detonation of bombs at three places of Kathmandu on September 2, targeted at ordinary citizens. A number of conspiracy theorists have been blaming it on different sections of the society though the credit is claimed by a couple of separate little known groups who claim to be waging war for separate Madhes state. Interestingly, the bomb blasts occurred after a couple of days of an agreement between the government and Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF). The agreement is opposed by a group of MJF and other Madhesi groups as well as by the Maoists.