Federalism And Governance System

Siddhi B Ranjitkar

Four major political parties such as UCPN-Maoist, NC, CPN-UML and UDMF have not been able to agree on the contentious issues such as federalism and governance, as none of these four parties is ready to backtrack on their original stand on these two major issues. So, the Constitutional Committee has extended its deadline for submitting a draft new constitution to the Constituent Assembly (CA) from January 4, 2012 to January 29, 2012 not affecting the deadline for promulgating a new constitution before the term of the CA expires on May 30, 2012 for further discussions on these two issues and then coming to a common understanding. Hot discussions have been ongoing on the federalism not only among the political parties but also among the members of political parties. Governance system has been a serious bone of contention. Political leaders have been hammering it up, not wanting to move from their original stand on it.

Federalism has been a hot topic for all Nepalis, as one of the most wrong impressions given to the Nepalis in general is that if the states bear the ethnic names then the only concerned ethnic group will have privilege of governing the state and running its administration.  If it were so, then it would grossly violate the human rights of all Nepalis, as Nepalis belonging to different ethnic groups living in other states other than the state of their ethnic group would lose all fundamental rights to be elected to various positions of the state government and even to be in the state administration. I think none of the Nepalis would like this system.  So, the political leaders and cadres need to make it clear to the common folks that it would not be so rather all Nepalis living in any states no matter who they are will have equal rights to hold any position in any state government and the administration. Each state government and administration should be inclusive of all the citizens living there.

In addition, political leaders and cadres need to explain to the people that whether they have been working on division of power between state governments and the federal government. So far, nothing of this subject matter has been discussed in the media. Some political leaders say that each state should have right to self-determination or autonomy. Again, political leaders need to explain what the self-determination or autonomy means. While talking about self-determination or autonomy, political leaders and cadres need to explain to the common folks that none of the states will have the right to independence from the federation either through referendum on it or by any other means. All states remain integral and unbreakable parts of the federation.

After the division of power between the states and the federal government, the discussions on the names and sizes of states should start, as only after the division of power, people will know whether the names of states would really mean anything to doing the business of states. Nepalis have been polarized into two competing groups: one group advocates for ethnic names and another for geographical names without having the idea of what differences would make by the names of the states in running the state administration and the state government. Even the members of the CPN-UML have been polarized into two groups: ethnic members of the party as a whole opting for ethnic names while Bahun and Chhetri group for geographical names.

If we go on naming the states by the ethnic names then we might find it difficult to satisfy all the ethnic groups, as we have more than one hundred ethnic groups that could claim for the names of states. So, we need to find common names of all states that would be acceptable to all the people. We could name some of the states by the names of deities such as Kalinchok, Dolakha, Muktinath and so on, other by place names such as Lumbini, Kapilvastu and so on, and other by the names of geographical regions.

Concerning the number of states, it might be ten; fifteen or whatever the number might be should be based on the sound current population and the future potential population growth, the river system, and natural resources. We should avoid the unbalanced states means one state having a large number of population while another state having only a few thousands people, a few natural resources and no link with road infrastructures. So, a number of states should be set considering the physical infrastructures, the river system, natural resources and certainly the population. It might be even better to leave this issue of number of states to the experts.

Now, the governance system the political leaders have been discussing. According to the media reports, they have been discussing three systems such as a presidential system that is for electing a president directly by the universal franchise, a parliamentary system means a parliament that elects a prime minister or a president, and the third one called a mixed system: hybrid of the previous two systems.

The UCPN-Maoist leaders have been for a presidential system. They believe that the parliamentary system has failed. They say that the parliamentary system has been causing political instability and corrupted the members of a parliament in the past. Selling and buying of votes have been widely practiced in the election to a prime minister. So, they want a presidential system that elects a president directly by the franchise making the president accountable to the people.

The NC and CPN-UML leaders say that the president directly elected by the people and accountable only to the people might be dictatorial. They argue that in absence of a mechanism controlling such a president, the people would need to wait for five years to replace any president that does not work for the people. Even though the parliament might have the power to impeach a president; it would need at least two-thirds majority to do so. They therefore argue for an improved parliament.

An improved parliament by their definition is an inclusive parliament. They want a parliament with the representations of all Nepalis belonging to different ethnic groups, castes and gender unlike the past parliament that had the representations of only political parties. The opponents of this system say that the improved parliament might be an inclusive one but how the proponents of this system would ensure that buying and selling of members of the parliament would not be regular phenomena at the time of election to a new executive: either a president or a prime minister.

The third hybrid system means people directly electing a president, and a parliament electing a prime minister. The directly elected president will share the power with the prime minister elected by the parliament. Some political leaders argue that a president and a prime minister thus elected might have a personality clashes making this system not workable.

However, healthy discussions on choosing the best governance system have been going on among the political leaders. The Constitutional Committee has extended the deadline for submitting a draft constitution to the CA by 25 days making sufficient time for all leaders to discuss, argue and ultimately compromising on a best possible governance system and federalism.

Political leaders have already agreed on a mixed election system but they have to agree on the percentage of direct and proportional elections. The UCPN-Maoist leaders have been for 50:50 whereas the NC leaders want 60:40 of the direct: proportional election.

January 5, 2012