The process of peace-building requires addressing the root causes of conflict, and its success relies heavily on the will of domestic political actors. These actors must work out some sort of compromise to sustain the democratic process; nothing is automatic.

It’s an unrewarding task to speculate on political stability. In fact, Nepal has seen so many different transition s that what is written in stone at one particular time may be completely irrelevant at another. Surely, two decades that followed the collapse of authoritarianism of monarchy—an auspicious opening for a transition toward democracy—have bestowed hitherto unimaginable opportunities to establish a national political system that draws its authority from the citizenry, one that provides for popular accountability and enables the citizens to live their own lives and pursue their own interests. However, enough people realise that the old problems of perennial order such as the  dominant state and a powerless, fragmented society  remain largely in place, with little ray of light on the gloom that envelops Nepal today,  probably reflected a growing sense of insecurity and uncertainty about the future.Â

Any significant political change will take many years to consolidate into social attitudes and economic gains. These transformations will, in turn, generate a holistic and coherent political sphere, as well as the political capital to articulate a path for the country, including a political system that is inclusive, responsive, and commits citizens to act normatively, responsibly and for wider pubic good. Political consolidation can also produce well governed state and deliberative politics wherein political discourse is free from discrimination based on race, ethnicity, class and gender. There have been opportunities to make the country more vibrant and dynamic, to impel the government to govern less and serve more interests among the population, to develop accompanying equal rights for all citizens, and encourage mechanisms of accountability and participation for modernism, progress and prosperity. There is no confusion that monarchy was a useless, feudal and outdated institution that has no place today is gone for good. So shouting slogans for monarchy is to subvert and thwart democratic aspirations of the people—sheer, quibbling over nonsense. The stultifying effect of even a moderate and humane monarchy or dictatorship is worse than the conflict, faction and indecision which are often found in a democratic government.

While we cannot turn back the clock, yet Nepal’s policies, process and institutions are structured less by organised groups than by a powerful oligarchy, in which rulers are often predatory power brokers, who achieve monopolistic control over economic resources. It is obvious that the design of republican government with strong checks and balances, makes a solution harder. Nepali society is more pluralistic today than it has ever been. But Nepal is plagued by a dysfunctional political equilibrium what might be called ‘state deficiencies’. The concept of state deficiencies implies something more than merely poor government performance—it means that the state fails to fulfill some of its basic governance, legal, and security functions and thus questioning its legitimacy to rule. The problem here isn’t  with the mode  of leadership  that is  too self-centered, incompetent, but drifting dreamers and cunning tacticians perhaps are ready  to make concessions in many areas, but not on the definite issue—the monopoly of power.

Several measures of democracy that include election are widely used in research on democracy. While the electoral process basically conformed to the patron-client model, yet Nepal can certainly be attributed to dyadic ties involving exchanges of favours between prosperous patrons and dependent clients in which the political machine was merely a specialised form of guns, goons and gold, described by some as ‘cacique democracy’ would be a more accurate interpretation of Nepali politics that does not deliver  participation, inclusiveness, competition and civil liberties. The CA has failed to effectively perform its functions. It can be said that its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power not as a sovereign actor representing in a democratic manner that upholds interest of pluralist groups, but rather as a penetrated force or fraud what some commentators have described as ‘smokescreen tactic’ to stay in power for as long as possible.

Moreover, any particular crisis needs to be understood not only in terms of immediate political economic concerns but also on the development over time of any particular social formation. We must look at how a crisis reshapes state institutions and forms new ideologies. Through such analysis, we can see the CA election as a watershed moment in Nepali politics actualising the devolution of authority, and efficiently designing institutions to give voice to the voiceless. Yet the outcome of that particular process is still years down the road.  That is a major reason why Nepal now is under siege.  Few scholars of Nepali politics today probably disagree.Â

While countries are much more likely to achieve a stable democracy if they can identify and embrace political leaders who won't be tempted to roll back to the old order, but when power resides firmly and solely at the helm, and where leadership succession is highly resistant to reform, even political ideology dances to the leader's tune and the few continue to maneuver all the resources undermining the sovereignty and welfare of the people. The Nepali case shows that it would ensure privatisation of the state, a complete disempowerment of the one side by the other or a regression to perpetual risk of reversal to authoritarianism or is a case  what the political philosopher Sheldon, argues  ‘inverted totalitarianism’.

We make no attempt to introduce all of the variables that might be relevant, yet a fundamental tension in Nepal is that at a time when the country requires political actors to rise above their mind-set for a comprehensive domestic revival, they stick to illusions propagated in the country for political petty interests resulting in the severe pessimism of today. Political actors often speak of accountability, but that rarely gets translated into genuine commitment. But, the process of peace-building requires addressing the root causes of conflict, and its success relies heavily on the will of domestic political actors. These actors must work out some sort of compromise to sustain the democratic process; nothing is automatic. The challenge is enormous; obviously the political will does not originate, and cannot manifest, in a vacuum.

True, no political system is perfect in achieving total national unity and eliminating all endemic conflicts. Moreover, it must be said that citizens ordinarily pay only cursory attention to politics and so tend to involve themselves minimally; nevertheless they can make coherent political ideas and even appreciate the core ideas of liberalism and conservatism in organising their political responses. Within the bitter acrimony and wide divergence of opinion among Nepali politicians, they do not exchange views on the most important issues facing the country and it remains doubtful that they will find agreement on a constitution that is accepted by broad cross-sections of Nepali society. Thus the question is not whether the constitution will be drafted by August 2011, but whether the seventh constitution will cultivate multiculturalism while simultaneously securing individual rights and liberties, and foster peacekeeping with political institutions that will be more durable than all previous six constitutions over the last six decades.

Even if we assume that Jana Andolan II was the manifestation of classic left-wing populism that persuaded the government to play a role in organising some form of social cohesion, often construed as welfare, it is unclear that the left received greater benefits. From a purely analytical perspective, those on the right side of the ideological spectrum in Nepal are less fragmented than the left side, perhaps because rightist did not have many realistic alternative choices and so united. The left, however, often benefited from the mistakes of the rights as much as their own efforts. On the other hand we find that leftist voters remain loyal to the parties regardless of the fact that their interests were hurt and their values disregarded. It is clear from the extant literature that when  a long-time governing party is removed from office it often finds itself intellectually bankrupt and its political voice reduced from a roar to a whimper. This, sadly is for NC.  Yet, if past is anything to go by, NC was a long-time ruling party not on the basis of vision or principles or social interaction but largely due to divide-and-conquer politics.

However, the route toward the fall of Marxist regimes from the 1917 Russian Revolution to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s was paved by its unrealistic ideology and economic nationalism. While it may be true that the old days of socialist fantasising utopianism are gone for good, yet a full free-market economy—that allow capitalism bloom and boom completely unhindered cannot be the bare bones of socioeconomic progress for traditionally disadvantaged groups. But there are still many who believe that Nepal needs to open its tent to ‘benevolent dictatorship’ or ‘repressive-responsive regime’ or an ‘authoritarian developmental state’, looking to the examples of Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea or elsewhere which utilised the pretext that ordinary people cannot be entrusted with power because it would corrupt them, and that economics is a major stabilising factor for society to reject the legitimacy of democratic systems of governance. There is some discussion that argues democracy it sometimes is less popular than dictatorship. Whereas traditional parties have eroded, allowing a surge of left-wing popular mobilisation, extremism of any kind cannot be an option for Nepal.

(Thapa is Professor of Political Science, TU, and currently Visiting Fellow, Department of Comparative Competitive Politics, Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo. Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

(Editor’s Note: Nepalis, wherever they live, as well as friends of Nepal around the globe are requested to contribute their views/opinions/recollections etc. on issues concerning present day Nepal to the Guest Column of Nepalnews. Length of the article should not be more than 1,000 words and may be edited for the purpose of clarity and space. Relevant photos as well as photo of the author may also be sent along with the article. Please send your write-ups to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it)