For Ending Political Deadlock

Siddhi B. Ranjitkar

The ceremonial President directly writing a letter to the Chief of Army Staff has abused the Interim Constitution of Nepal of 2007 causing the current political deadlock. Even putting their political career at risk, beneficiaries of the abuse of the Constitution of Nepal by the President have been in no mood to discuss the President’s unconstitutional move on directly writing a letter to the army chief in the legislature. Maoists also have not budged an inch from their stand on the demand for correcting the unconstitutional move of the President. In this context, the President could end the current political deadlock resigning from the position and paving the way for debating over the President’s unconstitutional move on directly writing a letter to the army chief in the legislature. However, the President is not going to do so because not only the President has been unscrupulous but has been standing on the shoulders of the most unscrupulous political leaders.

It is the moral obligation of President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav to end the current political deadlock he has caused. If he has been an ethical person he would have resigned from the position long time ago, and he would have been instrumental to resolve the political problem he has created, and would have ensured his name written in golden letters in the history of Nepal. However, it is not happening. So, he would be leaving the presidential residence as discredited as any despotic leaders in the history of Nepal.

Even if President Yadav shows his moral courage and attempts on resigning from the position, the political leaders on whose shoulders he has been standing would not let him do so as they have been currently in power because of his unconstitutional move on directly writing a letter to the army chief. So, if the President resigns they would lose the power, prestige and monetary benefits that come from the power. So, these unprincipled political leaders have opted for the head-on collision with the Maoists rather than co-working with them for the benefits of the common folks.

These deceitful political leaders have no worry about the political and economical future of the Nepalis but they have been simply working for staying in power and shamelessly looting the national treasures, taxpayers’ money and even destroying the foreign-made transport system for their benefits.

As soon as Girija Prasad Koirala came to power in 1990s, he did several things to benefit his daughter and relatives economically. For example, he first destroyed the trolley bus system built by the Chinese assistance, and then the Sajha Cooperative Bus system to run the private bus system set up by his people. He hit hard the current Nepal Airlines in 1990s selling the brand new two Boeings and hiring two old Boeings in both cases earning handsome commissions from the deals. If such things have not happened then the Nepal Airlines even though would not have been as large as the Thai Airlines but certainly would have been lager than the current Nepal Airlines. Both the Thai and Nepal Airlines were set up on the same day in 1958 but the Thai Airlines have made tremendous progress whereas the Nepal Airlines have even the problem of existence.

Girija Koirala had continuously created the shortage of petroleum products in Nepal from 2006 to 2007 while he was the Interim Prime Minister. At that time the prices of petroleum products were higher than in Nepal. The government of Girija Koirala did not increase the prices rather sold the half of the Nepal-bound petroleum products in the Indian markets for earning a large sum of money causing tremendous inconvenience to the Nepalese consumers and causing economic losses to the country, as people could not run their businesses properly due to the shortage of petroleum products, at the same time causing huge losses to the state-run monopolistic oil company called Nepal Oil Corporation.

Currently, Prime Minister Madhav Nepal has been causing tremendously high prices of foodstuffs. The price of potatoes has been Rs 40 per kilogram in the Kathmandu market since he became the Prime Minister. The police seized two truckloads of potatoes brought to sell at Rs 9 per kilogram in the Kathmandu market at the Thankot check post; the police charged the owner of the potato of bringing the potato for selling such a low price; and levied tax on the potato so that the price of the potato would be at par with the price at the Kathmandu market according to the news aired by the state-run Radio Nepal on September 28, 2009.  It clearly indicates that the Madhav administration has been in partnership with the potato mafia causing unbelievably high price of potato in the Kathmandu market. Currently, sugar is not available in the Kathmandu market. Most probably, the state-run company called ‘Salt Trading’ has diverted sugar to India, as the price of sugar in the Indian market has been unusually high just before the second largest Hindu festival called Devali. Salt Trading has the monopoly on buying and selling of sugar. Similarly, the Madhav administration must have partnership with the large dealers of other foodstuffs such as rice and lintels in doubling the prices of these foodstuffs since Madhav Nepal became the Prime Minister.

In an interview to the anchor of the Kantipur TV, Girija Koirala disclosed while he was in exile in India, he had made fake Indian banknotes and had even successfully used for filling petrol at the petrol station in India. These are only the tip of the iceberg.

Politically, Girija Koirala has been no less smart in unscrupulous political dealings. After the election victory of the his party in 1991, he sidelined the supporters of Supreme Leader of People’s Movement Ganesh Man Singh giving power, prestige and money to his relatives and supporters creating dissident members of his party in the parliament. Consequently, he had to face the opposition of the members of his own party in the parliament in the third year of his administration. On the wrong advice of his immoral advisors, he dissolved the parliament and took the country to the mid-term elections believing not only his party but also his group in the party would win the election with overwhelming votes in 1994. The results were just opposite to his anticipation.

Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist and Leninist (CPN-UML) won the largest number of seats in the parliament but not enough to command a majority to elect a government. Nepali Congress (NC) won the second largest number of seats while the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) of former Panchas won 20 seats in the 205-seat parliament.

Neither the CPN-UML nor the NC leaders wanted to form a grand coalition of the CPN-UML and NC the voters had wanted them to do. They were partners in the People’s Movement to topple the Panchayat rule set up by despotic Mahendra in 1962 killing democracy and democratic parties. After the success of the people’s movement they became rivals rather than partners in governance.

Neither the CPN-UML nor the NC leaders wanted to form a coalition government with the members of the RPP, as they were so corrupt and notorious during the Panchayat regime none of the two major political party leaders wanted to be closure to them. However, the 20 seats the RPP had won were just sufficient for both the CPN-UML and the NC to form a majority coalition government.

As a result, the CPN-UML leaders formed a minority government without the support of both the NC and the RPP members in the parliament. Despite the minority status of the CPN-UML government, the Prime Minister and particularly Deputy Prime Minister Madhav Nepal did not attempt on securing support of either the NC or the RPP members of the parliament. Rather they ran the administration as if they were of a majority government. They wasted huge national resources and taxpayers’ money and collected a large sum of money from different ministers. Agricultural Minister CP Mainali publicly said that Deputy Prime Minister Madhav Nepal had asked him for Rs 20 millions from his ministry. So anybody could guess how much money Madhav Nepal must have collected from other ministries during the nine months of the CPN-UML rule.

When the opposition party NC registered a no-confidence motion against the minority government of the CPN-UML at the parliament, the Prime Minister hurriedly dissolved the parliament and announced fresh elections for a new parliament believing the CPN-UML would win the elections with a great margin.

NC leaders went to the Supreme Court of Nepal saying the minority government has no rights to dissolve the parliament that also after the opposition had already registered a no-confidence motion against the government in the parliament; so the government needs to face the no-confidence vote in the parliament rather than dissolve the parliament.

The Supreme Court of Nepal ruled that the minority government that also after the opposition registering a no-confidence vote at the parliament has no rights to dissolve the parliament, so ruled to reinstate the parliament and let the minority government face the no-confidence motion in the parliament.

Formally untouchable RPP members of the parliament became the cozy partners for the NC to form a new coalition government. Parliamentary Leader of NC Sher Bahadur Deuba formed a coalition government of NC and RPP in 1995. After the defeat in the elections in 1994, Girija Koirala gave way to Deuba to be the parliamentary leader and then the Prime Minister. This coalition government has set the tradition of buying and selling the members of parliament to maintain the number of parliamentarians supporting the government.

However, despite the corrupt practice of buying and selling the parliamentarians, Deuba could not hold on the coalition government, after 18 months he gave way to the coalition of the faction of the CPN-UML and of the RPP to form a new coalition government. Formerly untouchable Lokendra Bahadur Chand of the RPP became the Prime Minister and the leader of CPN-UML Bamdev Gautam became the Deputy Prime Minister. One faction of the RPP had seriously resisted co-working with the communists.

By that time, the NC and CPN-UML leaders had already surpassed the notoriously corrupt politicians of the RPP in the shady political dealings. Taking bribes and spending taxpayers’ money irregularly had been the order of the day.

Girija Koirala had been making political moves from behind the scene so far but after the collapse of the Deuba-led coalition government, he emerged from the political hibernation to the active political intrigue to regain the lost power and prestige and the benefits that come from the power. He used the faction of the RPP that did not want to work in partnership with the communists and placed Surya Bahadur Thapa in the chair of the Prime Minister forcing Lokendra Chand to resign and the CPN-UML leaders to surrender the power in 1997.

Then, Girija Koirala had already been the half way to power again. He took the parliamentary leadership from Deuba and prepared for taking over the power from Surya Thapa. Girija Koirala has no faith in fair political dealings; cheating and gaining have been his motto. He forced Surya Thapa out of office and became the Prime Minister again in 1998.

Girija Koirala knew that his political reputation had been badly damaged. So, he put forward his colleague and arch political rival Krishna Prasad Bhattarai as the potential candidate for the Prime Minister in the parliamentary elections held in 1999. Girija Koirala returned to power triumphantly winning majority seats in the parliamentary elections.

Krishna Prasad Bhattarai became the Prime Minister but for not long. Not more than a year has passed since Bhattarai became Prime Minister, some members of parliament supporting Girija Koirala revolted against Bhattarai and forced him to resign. Girija Koirala became the Prime Minister to head the ninth government in 10 years.

However, the palace massacre on June 1, 2001 forced Girija Koirala to give in the power again to Deuba. He headed the 10th government in 11 years. He imposed a state of emergency to cope with the Maoists’ assaults in 2001, and then dissolved the parliament and announced fresh elections for the parliament.

Girija Koirala fired Deuba even from the primary membership of the NC for dissolving the parliament without consulting other leaders of the NC. Prime Minister Deuba in turn took away half of the NC members of the parliament and formed a new party called Nepali Congress-Democratic (NC-D) vertically splitting the NC in May 2002.

Following the advice of the leaders of other political parties in October 2002, naïve Deuba went to the palace for postponing the general elections scheduled for November 2002. Gyanendra fired him for not being able to hold the general elections scheduled for November, and took the power from the elected government thus effectively ended the democratic practice.

Gyanendra appointed one after another Lokendra Chand and then Surya Thapa and finally Deuba to the Prime Minister from 2002 to 2004. The CPN-UML leaders joined the Deuba government saying the regressive steps of Gyanendra have been corrected to some extent. Corruption and mismanagement of state affairs have continued in an awfully larger scale.

Other political parties continued their peace movement against the regressive steps of Gyanendra. Obviously, Gyanendra was not worried about the street movement of some political parties but he had been serious about how to impose his absolute rule in the country. He publicly said that the state was the property earned by his ancestors.

Then, on February 1, 2005, Gyanendra fired Deuba once again and took over the state power, put Deuba and other ministers behind bars, charged Deuba and Prakash Man Singh for embezzlement. He set up a commission on investigating, charging and judging on the corruption cases.

Gyanendra called for an application for the position of Prime Minister from the eligible persons.  The then General Secretary of CPN-UML Madhav Nepal applied for the job of Prime Minister stating he was the most eligible person for the position.

However, Gyanendra did not appoint anybody to the Position of Prime Minister rather appointed two Pancha stalwarts to the positions of Deputy Prime Minister and ran the administration absolutely using his discretion. Rule of law became the thing of past.

CPN-UML leaders went back to join the alliance of seven political parties that had been fighting against the regressive force of Gyanendra. They had left the Seven Party Alliance stating the regressive steps of Gyanendra had been corrected after the appointment of Deuba to the position of Prime Minister. They found that it was not so. So, they went back to on board of the Seven Party Alliance. Leaders of RPP did not join the Seven Party Alliance showing loyalty to the palace. NC-D too did not join the Seven Party Alliance, as Deuba became the puppet of Gyanendra.

The Seven Party Alliance successfully negotiated with the Maoists fighting for making Nepal a republic and reached the 12-point understanding with the Maoists on November 22, 2005. Then, the Seven Party Alliance along with the Maoists took only nineteen days to topple Gyanendra from power in April 2006; Gyanendra gave in and reinstated the parliament dissolved by Deuba in May 2002. Girija Koirala took over from Gyanendra again becoming the Interim Prime Minister.

The reinstated parliament suspended Gyanendra and effectively sealed the fate of the monarchy. The parliament delegated the power of the head of state to the Interim Prime Minister Girija Koirala making him Prime Minister-cum-Head of State.

Girija Koirala used his infamous political tricks and power to continue the political status quo. He came up with the idea of ceremonial king and then baby king and so on but he could not stand the pressure put up by the Maoists for declaring Nepal a republic.

Then, the parliament promulgated the Interim Constitution of Nepal of 2007 on January 1, 2007 and set up a new legislature of 330 members including 83 Maoists automatically dissolving itself. The Interim Constitution made the provision for holding elections for a Constituent Assembly-cum-legislature and declaring Nepal a republic by the first session of it.

On April 10, 2008, the Government of Nepal held general elections for a Constituent Assembly-cum-legislature. The Maoists won 140 seats out of the 300 seats directly elected and 100 seats out of the 301 seats allocated to the political parties and became the largest party in the Constituent Assembly-cum-legislature, the NC second, the CPN-UML third and the Madheshi parties together became the fourth largest party.

The Interim Constitution of Nepal of 2007 has allocated 301 seats for the political parties and made the provision for the political parties appointing some of their members to the Constituent Assembly-cum-legislature proportional to the votes the parties have received. So, the Constituent Assembly-cum-legislature has become the most inclusive having the representation of 25 parties.

Leaders of NC, CPN-UML and Madheshi People’s Rights forum (MPRF) forged an election alliance for electing President and Vice-president in June 2008. So, they elected Vice-president and President from among the Madheshi Nepalis on June 19 and 21 respectively. The President was the candidate of the NC whereas the Vice-president was of the MPRF. However, this alliance did not continue for the election for Prime Minister.

Interim Prime Minister Girija Koirala has continued to resist the election for the position of Prime Minister for four months since the elections for the Constituent Assembly-cum-legislature was held. Leaders of CPN-UML and MPRF did not agree on continuing the alliance they had forged for the elections for the President and Vice-president and keeping the Maoists out of the government. They were for a national government of all political parties. However, Girija Koirala did not agree on a national government and opted to remain out of the government.

On August 15, 2008, the Constituent Assembly-cum-legislature elected Prachanda for the position of Prime Minister by 464 votes out of 601 votes; all members except for the members of the NC did vote for Prachanda. More than four months after the elections for the Constituent Assembly-cum-legislature, Prachanda became the Prime Minister, leader of CPN-UML Bamdev Gautam Deputy Prime Minister with the portfolio of Home and Chairman of MPRF Upendra Yadav the Foreign Minister.

For some reasons, Madheshi members of the Constituent Assembly-cum-legislature took the legislature hostage asking the government to meet their demands, then the NC members did the same for several days, and finally the CPN-UML members took the turn to block the business of the legislature.

The Prachanda government has been the target of all political leaders. The NC leaders want to tear it down as soon as possible. Even some leaders of the political parties in the government have openly acted against the government. They tried every possible trick to make the Prachanda fall from the power.

Chief of Army Staff Rukmangad Katuwal had been the instrumental for the NC and some CPN-UML leaders to tear down the Prachanda government. Following the backup support of the NC and CPN-UML leaders, Katuwal started making political statement and had been deadly against the integration of the People’s Liberation Army with the Nepal Army and became the most undisciplined soldiers disregarding the order of the Minister of Defense and then the Prime Minister. The Prachanda government wanted to fire the undisciplined soldier obviously with the agreement with Chairman of CPN-UML Jhalanath Khanal. They have started the rumors of the Prachanda government capturing the power firing the army chief well before Prime Minister Prachanda fired Katuwal and appointed the man in the second-in-command as an acting chief of army on May 3, 2009.

The irony is that the leaders of the eighteen political parties including Jhalanath Khanal either believing or pretending to believe the rumors went to the President and urged him to write the army chief directly; in fact Jhalanath Khanal led the delegation of all the leaders of the eighteen political parties despite he had assured Prachanda of supporting the firing of the army chief.

One thing the leaders of the eighteen political parties have ignored is that nobody can capture the power in Nepal for long, as the International community would not support such a government. Nepal is neither Myanmar nor North Korea where the International Community has not much a say in the governance but here in Nepal the International Community has a say in governance. The International Community would pull out the support for any unconstitutional government making it a failure in case of a coup.

Disregarding honorable and ceremonial status of the presidency, President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav directly wrote a letter to Katuwal and ordered him to stay on in his job until further notice. Thus, the President abused the honorable and ceremonial status of the presidency and violated the Interim Constitution of Nepal of 2007 on the advice of the unscrupulous and undemocratic minded leaders of the eighteen political parties.

If the President wanted to save the job of the most undisciplined army chief, he could have followed the democratic means, and asked the Prime Minister follow the Interim Constitution of Nepal of 2007 for firing the army chief, alternatively he could take the issue to the legislature and let the legislature decide it. This is how the ceremonial President could have worked democratically and at the same time protected the constitution. The irony is that the first President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal has been tainted by the abuse of his status.

Prime Minister Prachanda tendered his resignation to the President on May 4, 2009 protesting the undemocratic and unconstitutional action of the President directly writing a letter to the high-ranking soldier and demanding the President to revoke his directly writing a letter to the disobedient soldier.

The showdown has started. The leaders of the eighteen political parties not only have been saying that the President’s action on directly writing a letter to Katuwal is constitutional but also have even refused to discuss the matter in the legislature whereas the leaders of the United Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-Maoist) have been saying the president’s action has been undemocratic and unconstitutional and the President must correct it.

Then, the members of the UCPN-Maoist in the legislature have been taking the legislature hostage demanding the President to annul his unconstitutional and undemocratic action. They also have been protesting the President’s, Prime Minister’s and other ministers’ public functions demanding the correction of the President’s unconstitutional and undemocratic move on saving the job of the army chief.

The irony is that we have the leaders of so-called parliamentary democratic parties advocating the President’s unconstitutional and undemocratic move on directly writing a letter to the army chief is constitutional and democratic whereas the leaders of UCPN-Maoist supposed to be against the norms and values of the parliamentary democracy have been advocating the President directly writing a letter to the army chief has abused his ceremonial position, and has failed in following the Interim Constitution of Nepal of 2007.

In the current situation of political deadlock, being the protectorate of the constitution, the President needs to act as the referee and end the current political deadlock accepting the mistake of directly writing a letter to the army and immediately resigning from the position. Then, all the so-called democratic leaders’ true character would be exposed and the issue goes back to the legislature for deliberations.

In order to prevent any political deadlock brought by the blocking of the business of the legislature, the legislature needs to enact a law to forbid anybody from taking the legislature hostage following the precedent set by the leaders of the so-called democratic parties.

October 11, 2009.