CJ-led Government-16

Siddhi B Ranjitkar

The Central committee meeting of CPN-Maoist-Vaidhya has started off on Saturday, June 29, 2013 obviously to discuss and decide whether to boycott the elections or not. Obviously, Chairman Vaidhya has nothing on the agenda how to lead his party. His claim that the Constituent Assembly (CA) elections without the participation of his party that has the glorious history of the 10-year long people’s war will be meaningless will soon prove to be false. Chairman Vaidhya needs to go back to join UCPN-Maoist if he wants to institutionalize the achievements made by the people’s movements, and meet the people’s aspirations for political stability and fast economic development. The legacy of the Rana-shah rule has been Nepal becoming one of the poorest countries in the world, and the status of the beggar country in the eyes of the international community. If Chairman Vaidhya wants to lift the country from the status of the poorest country in the world he needs to adopt the Chinese way of development rather than disrupting the elections.

Chairman Mohan Vaidhya of CPN-Maoist-Vaidhya has the problem of survival of his party. He has been leading his party to the dead end. His policy on boycotting the elections and disrupting the elections has led the party to nowhere. What is his agenda if he is not able to disrupt the election?  He has come down from effectively disrupting the entire elections to disrupting the elections at least at one polling booth. Speaking at the Reporter’s Club on Friday, June 28, 2013, his Vice-chairman CP Gajurel said that his party would ask the state employees for going off duty during the elections. Hopelessly nonsense thing, Mr. Gajurel said was his party would tell the Chief of Army Staff not to shoot at the cadres of his party.

After the four-day deliberations, the Central committee meeting of CPN-Maoist-Vaidhya has decided that the class organizations affiliated to the party and cadres would be mobilized to post them to each voting booth to disrupt the elections. The Home Ministry has analyzed the current situation and found that the threat from the CPN-Maoist to prevent the elections to a new CA is almost nonexistence.

The decision of the Central committee meeting of CPN-Maoist-Vaidhya on disrupting the elections to a new CA is the most destructive one if it is not a face-saving tactics. Leaders of this party need to understand that the elections are part of the democratic exercises. Disrupting the elections means throttling democracy. They also need to understand that more than ninety percent of the political parties are for the elections. So, they need to think whether stopping the elections is the rational thing to do in the current political situation.

Mr. Vaidhya has many colleagues that want to participate in the elections. That was one of the reasons why he needed to hold the Central committee meeting of his party in Pokhara. The militant party leaders such as spokeswoman Pampha Bhusal, General Secretary Ram Bahadur Thapa ‘Badal’, and Devendra Gurung have been deadly against taking part in the elections. They have been for launching a war immediately. A number of rational-thinking leaders equally influential in the party have been for participating in the elections, and keeping the party on track of the mainstream politics.

Not participating in the elections means the party has either to disrupt the elections or launch a war or to fade away from existence. The party would be out of the track of the mainstream politics. Keeping the political party out of the mainstream politics means swimming against the political current or flow.

Disrupting the elections is beyond the capacity of the CPN-Maoist-Vaidhya. It has not sufficient cadres to reach every voting booth, and stop the voters from voting. It has no means to hire others to do the work for even a day. That is why Chairman Vaidhya has said that his party needs to disrupt the elections at least at one voting booth. The party can disrupt the elections at not one voting booth but 10 for saving its face. The EC can hold re-elections at all those voting booths.

The party can launch a war as desired by the militant groups. However, the party can launch a war neither from Kathmandu nor from Rukum. Nobody wants a war. The party leaders can send some of their cadres with pressure cooker bombs to terrorize the people. These cadres will be declared terrorists and criminals. The State will hunt for them and bring them to justice.

The party will soon fade away without doing anything. The party can send some of the cadres to grab land to show its existence. In fact, they have grabbed the land belonging to the chairman of the Interim Election Council of Ministers and his relatives. However, the chairman has wisely not reacted to the grabbing of his land. He knows it is illegal. Doing anything against the childish acts of grabbing land means bringing them to limelight of the politics. So, the party will have nothing to do means it will be dormant or inactivate whereas other parties will be fighting for slots in the CA.

The party will win nothing following the path of violence for grabbing power. The need is for winning power through ballots not bullets. The party cannot win any sympathy of the people shutting down the entire country causing tremendous inconvenience to the people. The war is worst than any other thing. Forget about doing any other things. Have a clear agenda, and go to the people with the agenda for winning the votes and the mind of the people.

The party has the problem of survival. The party will not survive without participating in the elections. The party will be the party of warmongers and terrorists if it launches a war. Vaidhya will be another Matrika Yadav that has set up a CPN-Maoist splitting away from the UCPN-Maoist. Matrika Yadav has recently agreed on going together with the CPN-Maoist-Vaidhya.

If Chairman Vaidhya thinks that his party has the glorious history of the 10-year long people’s war, and wants to preserve it he needs to take part in the elections. He needs to work on institutionalizing the glorious achievement of the people’s war. Vaidhya can do it participating in the elections. A new CA means an institution for crafting a new constitution, which means institutionalizing the achievement of the people’s war and the people’s movements.

However, Vaidhya said that he did not believe in the CA crating a new constitution and promulgating it after the demise of the first CA. He threatens to promulgate a constitution on the streets. It is nothing but a joke.

Vaidhya also believes that the elections to a new CA will not be held on November 19, 2013, as he assumes that the four political parties such as UCPN-Maoist, NC, CPN-UML, and UDMF don’t let it happen.

He also laments that the UCPN-Maoist together with the NC and CPN-UML has sidelined his party. He claims that his party has the glorious history of the people’s war, and nobody can craft a new constitution sideling such a party with the glorious history.

Vaidhya needs to understand that going against the elections means a counter revolutionary approach. It goes against institutionalizing the achievements made by the people. It will help the regressive forces to strengthen their position. It will bring the political instability. It will not ensure the survival of the party. It will lead the party to destruction.

If the CPN-Maoist-Vaidhya is a patriotic party, it needs to join the UCPN-Maoist, and follow its development agenda. The UCPN-Maoist has the clear idea of following the Chinese path of development. If China can uplift millions of people from poverty why Nepal cannot.

The socialist path of development has left Russia to the status of a developing country in 1990. The 70-year long Soviet rule has been the rule of dictators that have cared nothing for the people but for their glory and pomp. In the name of socialism, they controlled everything in the lives of the people. They went for the world domination keeping the people at the poorest possible level. However, after 70 years, the Soviet rule collapsed. Then, Russia became like one of the developing countries. Violence of human rights, restriction on press freedom, corruption, and annihilation of the political rivals have been the regular business of the people in power in Russia even today. Democracy has to take roots in Russia, yet.

The socialist path has led North Korea and Cuba to the problem of survival. South Korea has attained the status of the most advanced country but North Korea has been suffering from hunger and diseases because its leaders are more interested in missiles and nuclear weapons to bolster their status rather than letting their people to have bread and butter for survival. Cuba had been living in the shadow of the Soviet Union. Once, the shadow has gone, and then the country has the problem of survival. Next door, people enjoy everything the free market brings them; however, Cubans have to satisfy with what the government provides them with.

Venezuela has the natural resources that can enrich the people. However, the past ruler called Hugo Chavez had misappropriated the billions of dollars of the oil revenue in the name of socialism, and in the name of helping the poor. If the resources had been used properly for the socio-economic development of the people, the country would have been different from what it has been today.

Following the socialist path and controlling everything possible, the Indian leaders have successfully kept the millions of Indians in poverty and destitute. Once a World Bank economist currently Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh has not been able to open the Indian economy to the world for the fast development despite the vivid example of China moving so fast to the second largest economy in the world by its policy on opening the country to the world. Indian politicians, industrialists, businesspersons, landowners, and even civil servants want to continue the current status quo rather than improving the lot of the millions of poor Indians. They believe that improving the status of the deprived people means facing the challenges from them, and even losing the political rights, industrial rights, business rights and landowner’s rights to exploit the tenants, and finally the civil servant’s rights to rule. So, all the people belonging to the different category of the privileged classes don’t want the foreign companies coming to India. They want to go as slow as possible to the development path.

The 240-year Rana-shah rule had left Nepal as the poorest country in the world. Some politicians are still advocating for the return of the monarchy to put the people back to the subjugation. However, current Nepalis are not the Nepalis of even 1990. The return of the monarchy is the wishful thinking of the irrational politicians.

The 20-year rule (from 1990 to 2000) of the NC and CPN-UML has shown that these political parties have no development agenda; they have no ideology; they just want to grab the power no matter at what cost to the nation. Consequently, Nepal has suffered the tremendous corruption; and the development of the country has been stalled if not retarded. They often say that they are the saviors of democracy however they don’t understand what the democracy is. They shamelessly impose their decisions on the parties often ignoring the majority voices. People rejected majority of the top leaders of the NC and CPN-UML in the elections to a CA held in April 2008.

The current government has been formulating plans and programs on Nepal graduating to a developing country within 10 years. However, the current government is an interim government; so it cannot formulate and implement a long-term plans and programs. It has only five months before going out of office. After the elections to a new CA on November 19, 2013, a political party or a coalition of two or more parties will take office.

Showing the arrogance of leading a party with the glorious historical background, and not participating in the elections to a new CA, and arrogantly saying that nobody can craft a new constitution sideling such a historically important party, and even if a constitution is crafted, it won’t be a people’s constitution, Chairman Vaidhya has clearly shown that he does not know what he is really after. Surely, nobody wants to sideline the CPN-Maoist-Vaidhya. However, if Chairman dose not want to participate in the elections at any cost, nobody can help him. He will not get his demand for tearing down the current government and forming an all-party government for holding elections met. He needs to understand that a small party like CPN-Maoist-Vaidhya cannot impose its will on all other political parties in the democratic system of governance.

Chairman Vaidhya needs to go back to the UCPN-Maoist, and get maximum seats in the CA, to help craft a new constitution, and institutionalize the political achievements made by the people’s war and the people’s movements in the past. Thus, Mr. Vaidhya will be able to lead his glorious and historical party to meet the people’s aspirations for political stability not by disrupting the elections, and terrorizing the people but by taking part in the elections to a new CA.

Chairman Prachanda of UCPN-Maoist has clearly stated that he is for following the Chinese path of development for the fast economic development, and uplift the millions of people from the poverty. That is not the dream that is a possibility and the clear vision of the leader. In order to materialize the vision of such a leader, Chairman Vaidhya needs to go along with Chairman Prachanda, and win the people’s mandate for setting the development agenda of the party. Nepalis cannot wait for longtime to improve their lot. Nepalis are not for any sorts of shutdowns, any political chaos, and any other political malpractices. They want fast economic development and get rid of all sorts of shortages currently prevailing in Nepal.

July 2, 2013