CJ-led Government-09

Siddhi B Ranjitkar

Political parties have been putting pressure on the Interim Election Council of Ministers (IECM) to announce the election date whereas the four major political parties have been unable to remove the legal hurdles to the elections, and some other political parties have been on the streets to stop the elections. The IECM has invited the opposing political parties to come to dialogue without all sorts of conditions but the opposing parties have snubbed it. Leaders of the four major political parties have decided to bring the opposing political to an agreement on elections otherwise go ahead for elections without them. Chairman of IECM said that none of the opposing forces could stop the elections as the country has been in the process of holding elections.

The main legal hurdle has been the disagreement on various provisions to be made in the Constituent Assembly Member Election Act. Immediately after the appointment of the election commissioners including the chief election commissioner, the Election Commission (EC) prepared amendments to the three election-related laws. One of them is the Constituent Assembly Member Election Act.

The High Level Political Mechanism (four-party political mechanism) of the four major political parties such as UCPN-Maoist, NC, CPN-UML and UDMF have agreed on the amendments to the two election-related laws but they continued to discuss the provisions made for amendments to the third law: Constituent Assembly Member Election Act. The IECM forwarded two election-related laws to the president. President Dr Ram Baran Yadav in turn issued two ordinances making the EC possible to work on the election-related work such as updating the voters’ list.

The EC made the provisions such as one-and-a-half percent threshold for the proportional election, 10,000 signatures for registering political parties at the EC for the purpose of elections, reducing number of constituent assembly to 491 from 601 drastically lowering the number of slots for the proportional representation, denying people with the serious criminal records to be candidates, and the need for declaring the assets of candidates among others in the amendment to the Constituent Assembly Member Election Act. The EC forwarded it to the IECM for forwarding it to the president to issue a Constituent Assembly Member Election Ordinance.

The IECM could not forward the amendment to the Constituent Assembly Member Election Act to the president without the green signal of the four-party political mechanism. So, the IECM sent it to the four-party political mechanism for discussion. Since then it has been held at the our-party political mechanism for discussion.

Initially, the four-party political mechanism agreed on one-percent threshold, which means any political party receiving less than one percent of the total votes cast will not have representation through the proportional representation. This one-percent provision was the new addition made by the EC. This provision was clearly of the political parties that did not want the representation of the small ethnic Nepalis. Previous Constituent Assembly had the representation of a party securing 20,000 votes. At that time, there was no such provision for limiting the number of votes to receive for representation. The number of votes to be received was the total votes cast divided by the number of the slots in the Constituent Assembly for the proportional representation. Consequently, many small ethnic Nepalis had their representation in the dissolved constituent assembly. The new provision called one-percent threshold will deny the representation of most of the ethnic Nepalis in the Constituent Assembly. Ethnic people came out against the one-percent threshold.

Previous CA had 601 members. Political leaders that did not want to see the representation of the ethnic Nepalis had been lobbying for reducing the number of the CA stating the small country could not afford such a large number of CA members, and the country did not need such a large number of CA members. So, they lobbied for reducing the number of CA including the barrier to the representation of the ethnic Nepalis in the name of the threshold of one percent.

The four-party political mechanism reduced the CA members from 601 to 491. Nepal is divided into 240 constituencies for the purposes of elections. So, 240 members of CA will be directly elected, and another 240 through the proportional representation, and 11 members will be the nominees of the president. Thus, 110 members of the CA to be elected through the proportional representation were reduced. This was really the conspiracy of the four-party political mechanism to deny the representation of the ethnic Nepalis.

Leaders of NC and CPN-UML have been sticking to reducing the number of CA members to 491, and to the provision of one-percent threshold. Chairman of CPN-UML Jhalanath Khanal had been repeatedly saying that his party would stand for the provisions for the one-percent threshold and the reduced number of CA members. He even threatened that his party would not go to the polls without these two provisions in the Constituent Assembly Member Election Act. Similarly, NC leaders had been speaking for making these two provisions that went against the ethnic people. Ethnic Nepalis have seen these NC and the CPN-UML as the foes of the ethnic people.

UCPN-Maoist and UDMF quickly withdrew the support for these two provisions after the 33 political parties including the CPN-UML-Vaidhya opposed the provisions. However, one of the leaders of the Madheshi Peoples’ Rights Forum-Democratic said that his party would agree on the one-percent threshold. This party is one of the members of the UDMF alliance. Thus, one of the Madheshi parties came out against the proportional representation of the ethnic Nepalis.

Opponents particularly the NC and the CPN-UML of the inclusive representation of the ethnic Nepalis did not realize denying the representation of the ethnic people in the CA that would craft a new constitution would not be legitimate. Ethnic Nepalis would not live without their representation even if they were to wage a guerrilla war. Ethnic Nevah would fight from wherever they live. They are scattered all over Nepal. Similarly, other ethnic Nepalis also would fight against any political party that wanted to take the country to the ruling style of the former dynastic rulers.

The Shah dynastic rule of 240 years denied the Nevah and some other ethnic Nepalis even to serve in the army. The Tamang ethnic Nepalis could serve in the army as porters. Whereas some other ethnic Nepalis such as Magar, Gurung and Rai enjoyed in serving the Nepal Army but not beyond the positions of soldiers.

The Shah dynastic rule denied Nepalis everything except for the forced labor. Nepalis had provided the forced labor called ‘jhara’ to the Shah and later to Ranas in the past. The rulers in return provided Nepalis with nothing but diseases, poverty and destitute. Thus, the Shah-Rana rulers made Nepal a beggar country.

Now, ethnic Nepalis would not be passive recipients but fight for everything they deserve. So, the political parties particularly the NC and CPN-UML would not able to deny the representation of the ethnic Nepalis to the CA. If they were to do so, either the ethnic Nepalis would vote NC and CPN-UML out of existence or they would launch a perpetual guerrilla war. They might not be able to keep Nepal in one piece without giving the ethnic Nepalis the due share in the governance. Current Nepal is not of the Nepal of the cruel and despotic rulers such as Prithvi Narayan, and then Jung Bahadur Rana that ruled Nepal by the swords in their hands, and by the words of their mouths not by the rule of law.

The 33 political parties including the CPN-UML-Vaidhya have been opposing the threshold of one percent votes, the requirement of 10,000 signatures for registering the political parties at the EC for the purposes of the elections, and the reduction of the number of the CA members from 601 to 491.

The four-party mechanism itself has been opposing the provisions for denying people with the serious criminal records to be candidates, and the need for the candidates declaring their assets. The four political parties have numerous criminals holding significant positions in the respective parties. For example, the UCPN-Maoist has not surrendered the criminals convicted by the law court, and some wanted by the law court for their involvement in criminal acts. Four former leaders of NC had served the jail terms for corruption and abuse of authority. Similarly, CPN-UML and UDMF also have a number of political leaders that needed to be in jail rather than in the respective party positions. None of the political leaders wanted to declare their assets because they had probably large assets illegally amassed. Almost all Nepalese leaders that had served in the government had been criminals in one way or another, as almost all of them abused the authority, and amassed large assets. These two crimes are not forgeable.

Subject matters such as one percent threshold, and the reduction of CA members from 601 to 491 have been under discussion at the four-party political mechanism. UCPN-Maoist wanted to go back to 601 CA members and to the same provisions for proportional representation as of the elections in 2008 without threshold but the NC and CPN-UML had been boldly sticking to their demands for one percent threshold, and the 491 number of CA members. If the NC and CPN-UML were to succeed in keeping the threshold and 491 CA members means they were bullying the ethnic Nepalis that would have no alternative but to fight against the exclusive rule of the NC and the CPN-UML by any means.

The four-party political mechanism at a meeting decided to bring the opposing political parties to an agreement on participating in the elections if not, the four political parties would go ahead with the elections ignoring the opposition of the 33 political parties including the CPN-Maoist-Vaidhya. Leaders of the CPN-Maoist-Vaidhya snubbed the call of the four-party political mechanism stating they don’t recognize it. Initially, they also ignored the call of the IECM to have dialogue stating they did not recognize the IECM. Lately, Chairman of the CPN-Maoist-Vaidhya put forward impossible-to-meet demands such as annulling the ‘Removal of Constitutional Hurdles Ordinance’ and the subsequent formation of the IECM, for sitting at a talk table.

One of the so-called leaders of the CPN-UML KP Oli said that if the opposing political parties were to prevent the IECM holding elections, then his party would take the issue to the streets for forcing the elections to be held. He said that the IECM should put pressure on the opposing political parties to participate in the elections.

Chairman of IECM Khil Raj Regmi said that no opposing force could prevent the government from holding elections. He ordered all the state agencies including the ministries not to sanction leave to the state staffs, to prepare the lists of staffs working in every agency, and list the staffs going to work on elections, and of the staffs not going to work on elections, not to initiate any new projects, and make preparations for holding elections. Chairman Regmi was not for waiting the opposing political parties for coming to an agreement in participating in the elections, and he would go ahead holding elections.

One of the major tasks of the IECM was to delineate constituencies based on the population census of 2010. Chairman of UCPN-Maoist Prachanda had a number of times urged the IECM in his public speeches to set up a commission on delineating constituencies. The four-party political mechanism also decided on May 16, 2013 to urge the IECM to set up the commission. The chairman of the IECM had not shown any indication of setting up the commission. If Chairman Regmi were really for holding elections he needed to set up a commission on delineating constituencies based on the population census of 2010 without delay.

Some of the political leaders have been in the election campaign.

For example, one of the senior leaders of NC Sher Bahadur Deuba has been speaking in the districts. He has been saying that his party will not go to polls in alliance with any other political parties, a constitution would be crafted only if his party were to get the majority, and he accused the UCPN-Maoist of not making the dissolved CA to craft a constitution.

President of NC Sushil Koirala has been saying that he is for going to polls in alliance with other political parties. He has been saying that his party is the only Democratic Party but he has been no better than any dictators in running his party. He has brushed off the opinions of the majority of the central committee members of his party to make the decision on appointing the tainted Lokman Singh Karki to the most responsible office of the Commission on Investigation into Abuse of Authority (CIAA).

Vice-president of NC Ram Chandra Poudel has been saying that his party will go to the polls in alliance with other democratic political parties. He has been one of the political leaders that have been successful to put on heavy weight after the people’s movement of 1990 but managed to remain clean without getting into the entanglement of corruption. If you were to compare his picture of the 1990 with the current picture he had gained tremendous weight but nowhere to trace his corruption activities.

Chairman of UCPN-Maoist Prachanda once has said that if the CPN-UML were to go to polls in alliance with the NC then the CPN-UML would lose its existence provoking strong reactions from the CPN-UM leaders. Later on, Chairman Prachanda corrected his statement to saying that the ideology of the CPN-UML would get lost if an election alliance were to form between the CPN-UML and the NC.

Chairman of CPN-UML loved to repeatedly say that the elections would sweep away the UCPN-Maoist. According to the CPN-UML Chairman, Nepalis have understood the activities of the UCPN-Maoist, so, existence of the UCPN-Maoist would be in question after the elections. But Chairman Khanal does not seem to be worrying about how to keep his party alive. Most of the competent leaders of the ethnic origin have left the CPN-UML for other political parties or formed a new political party. Only the most incompetent leaders such as Subhas Nemwang and others have remained in the CPN-UML. Ethnic Nepalis have made decision on defeating any of the ethnic candidates of the NC and the CPN-UML in the elections.

Madheshi political leaders have been grappling with the problem of going together to the polls. One of the Madheshi leaders Jayapraksh Prasad Gupta said that United Madheshi Democratic Front (UDMF) has been dead. Mr. Gupta has been recently out of jail after serving for the corruption. Madheshi People’s Rights Forum-Nepal of Upendra Yadav, and Samajbadi Madheshi Party of Sharat Singh Bhandari also have not joined the UDMF. Soon, Madheshi leaders might been able to claim the office of prime minister if they were to go together but one of the leaders of the UDMF Mahant Thakur has already shown the fatigue of keeping all Madheshi political parties together.

What the choices Nepalese voters will have in the elections? NC and CPN-UML represented the political parties that had misruled and mismanaged the administration and institutionalized corruption rather than democratic institutions during their rule after the people’s movement of 1990. UCPN-Maoist has been offering federalism and identity-based federal states but it has not been able to part with the convicted criminals. Fortunately for the UCPN-Maoist, most of the hardliners had split away from it and formed another CPN-Maoist under the leadership of Kiran Vaidhya. So far, CPN-Maoist has been saying that it will not participate in the elections rather will disrupt the elections. UDMF leaders have nothing to offer to the Nepalis in general except for federalism and federal states. The menu is so small voters might have least incentive for going to polls this time.

May 18, 2013