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VOL. 03, NO. 01, June 01, 2009 (Jestha 18 2066)
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NEW GOVERNMENT
In Stable Instability
Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal vows to chart a new geography of Nepali politics but the old history will continue to haunt him
BY SUSHIL SHARMA
Madhav Nepal’s odyssey to Nepal’s top executive office has come amidst unusual turn of events. The UML veteran is not an elected member of parliament. He lost from two constituencies – by a good margin.
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| PM Nepal(left)and former PM Thapa |
He was brought into the parliament through backdoor. He got nominated to the deputies. But he is not the leader of the parliamentary party of the UML.The former UML general secretary stayed away from the elections for the party’s newly created powerful chairman’s chair.
In contrast, the outgoing prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal won from two constituencies – by a commanding margin. He is the chairman of the parliament’s largest party, the Maoist communist party. And leader of the Maoist parliamentary party as well.
After he stepped down, his successor would normally have been the leader of the second largest party and the main opposition.
The main opposition leader, “power-hungry” Girija Prasad Koirala, opted out, instead, in favor of the third largest party, the UML. But not for the obvious person -- the leader of the parliamentary party
The man holding the position is Jhalnath Khanal. Unlike the eventual new prime minister, Khanal got into the parliament by virtue of a victory at the hustings.
He is also the elected chairman of the UML.
The electoral loser has ended up getting the better of the two winners – Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Jhalnath Khanal. In the much-vaunted loktantra under ‘a uniquely inclusive, representative and sovereign’ parliament -- the 601-member constituent assembly.
True, the UML, along with its then-boss Madhav Nepal, was seen as a front-runner for the job. Before the constituent assembly elections. The election results proved all the calculations wrong.
But, as it turned out, the game was not over yet. The ‘wrong’ calculation has been ‘righted’ in less than a year. Through the sheer number games.
The game that catapulted the winning leader of the majority-less single largest party to the top executive job has brought him down – and placed a losing leader of a party half the former’ size at the pedal.
Perhaps this unusual turn of events is what is behind the confidence exuded by the new prime minister.
After assuming office, he said the government will last until a new constitution is framed – in a year’s time from now – and a new government is put in place under fresh elections.
The shaky coalition of fractured partners that Nepal leads does not inspire confidence, though.
The new prime minister might have hoped to pull it off on the strength of what many see as his key assets -- flexibility and accommodative nature.
But skeptics would bank on his known weaknesses of inconsistency and indecision to argue that the new occupant of Baluwatar premises is making a castle in the air.
The electoral loser will also have his moral grounds too weak to stamp his authority on the hotchpotch of more than a dozen parties.
More important, no government in the post-1951 democratic Nepal has survived its full term.
From the nominated interim coalition of Mohan Shumsher to the elected two-third majority government of B.P. Koirala between in the first nine years of multi party democracy and constitutional monarchy.
From Surya Bahadur Thapa to Lokendra Bahadur Chand and from Tulsi Giri to Marich Man Singh Shrestha under absolute monarchy. And from a majority government of Girija Prasad Koirala and Krishna Prasad Bhattarai to a minority government of Man Mohan Adhikary to a series of coalitions of Sher Bahadur Deuba and others under constitutional monarchy.
All died a premature death. So did the first republican government of Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
The monarchy is gone. But not the instability. So, the odds do not favor the new prime minister. History will keep haunting him, even as he gets desperate to reverse it.
MAOIST STAND
Nationalist Slogans: Anti-National Results
Actions performed by Maoists harping on nationalist slogans have brought about anti-nationalist results
By KESHAB POUDEL
Accusing external elements for intervening internal politics of Nepal, particularly in reference with the collapse of Maoist led coalition, former Prime Minister Prachanda and the third man in his party ranks, Dr. Baburam Bhattari, tried to justify that the government fell because of their nationalist stands. However, anti-nationalist symptoms have surfaced in their actions in reality.
Despite the resonance of Maoists’ slogans of nationalism, Nepal’s state institutions, traditions and practices have been badly shaken, and Nepal has appeared for the first time in its history the weakest as an independent and sovereign nation.
When the Maoist led government collapsed, Prime Minister Prachanda, who’s unconstitutional in his own word an act of political compulsion, prompted the crisis, fingered out intervention of external element, mainly of Nepal’s southern neighbor, for his downfall. Prachanda, who has himself claimed that he spent in India eight years out of ten years of violent insurgency in Nepal, did not hesitate to present nationalist posture harping on anti-Indian slogan. Former Prime Minister Prachanda, however, could hardly explain which of his acts protected Nepal’s own interests.
Prime Minister Prachanda’s abrupt decision to seek clarification from Chief of the Army Staff, Rukmangad Katuwal, did not only cost him his chair, but also postponed Nepali Prime Minister’s scheduled official visit to China. What prompted Prime Minister Prachanda to pick up this political fiasco, which was sure to create a crisis in Nepali politics, with the army on the threshold of his proposed visit to China? Why did he not wait for a month even when his coalition partners were requesting him not to make single party decision? He did not say anything about it in his nationwide address and press conference.
Former Prime Minister Prachanda’s action against Chief of the Army Staff, General Katuwal, not only cancelled Prime Minister’s important visit to China, but also made Nepal Army suspiciously take an alert position for survival.
In the name of civilian supremacy and national independence, Dahal’s actions aimed at pushing aside Nepali Army, a powerful institution. Addressing a press conference Prime Minister PrachandA divulged, “External element is behind the fall of our government. “I don’t want to pinpoint name of the government,” said Maoist leader Prachanda.
Prachanda’s colleague and the third man in his party command, Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, openly accused India for intervention in Nepali internal politics to an extent that the Indian External Affairs Minister of State has strongly reacted against the accusation.
“One cannot be a nationalist just by harping on nationalist slogans and by accusing external elements. What is important is to see the result of such slogans. Maoists leaders harp on nationalist slogans all the time, but these slogans produce anti-national results,” says a political analyst.
After the abolition of monarchy, Maoists have made efforts to weaken the base of Nepal’s nationalism. Just after a few months in power, Maoist tried to interrupt the age old practices of religious shrine, Pashupatinath, in the name of appointing Nepali nationals as priests in place of Indian Bhattas. That action tarnished Nepal’s image throughout the Hindu community and seriously affected the interest of Nepal.
In the similar way, Prachanda even tried to shake the judiciary by proposing a junior judge for the position of Chief Justice in the place of Min Bahadur Rayamajhi, a senior judge. This debate too has weakened position of all the judges of Supreme Court who have been waiting to be promoted on the basis of seniority.
From the time of People’s War launched by CPN-Maoists till their nine months in power, Maoist leaders have been harping on the nationalist slogans all the time, but these slogans have merely made Nepal and Nepal’s situation weaker.
Maoist slogans to hold Constituent Assembly election have cost much to Nepal as the election has dragged the country into long unending political, ethnic, religious, linguistic and regional quagmire. Similarly, the abolition of monarchy prior to forming a viable institution with legitimacy and popular base has created a major vacuum.
When Maoists launched People’s War in 1996, Nepal had a properly functioning multi-party democratic system with constitutional monarchy. Although Nepal has seen many political ups and downs, Nepal was in the process of learning by doing with periodic elections and government accountable to the people.
Maoists’ violent actions, slowly and gradually, weakened democratic institutions at the local level, the parliament at the center and all the state's institutions that had evolved during five decades long experiments. One can clearly see Nepal’s interests enveloped, ignored and sacrificed by mere slogans of nationalism and slogans against intervention of external element.
