Running Administration Not so Easy

By Siddhi B. Ranjitkar

Prime Minister Prachanda has acknowledged that the running administration is not so easy. Running coalition government must be even more challenging. You accepted all those challenges becoming the Prime Minister of Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal and now you got to face all those challenges or you would be put on the people’s trial for not meeting your own promises made to the people.

We accept that you have faced the opposition of the Nepali Congress. This is what democracy is all about. If you do not need to face such opposition we do not know what you and your followers would have done to the Nepalese people. The history of the former Soviet Union and of your demigod Mao has it that millions of people had died in the hands of the communists’ massacres. However, the history has not repeated in Nepal thanks to the strong opposition put up by some political parties including Nepali Congress.

We know that the bureaucracy is age-old; we also know that most of the bureaucrats holding top positions are the appointees of the Nepali Congress except for those you have replaced with your own appointees. Even with your men at the various levels of the bureaucracy you might not be able to push bureaucracy too fast, as you know bureaucracy is the machine run on the rules and regulations. So, if you want to make it run fast you have to change the rules and regulations and make it run fast shortening the time taken for decision-making. Keeping all the rules and regulations intact you cannot simply complain that the bureaucracy does not move fast.

We also hear that you have interfered in the administration of the Home Minister. If the news in the Nepalese media is true you have ordered the Home Minister to release some of your cadres arrested on the criminal charges. How could then the Home Minister maintain law and order if he has to release the criminals on your order? In other words you have encouraged the criminals to continue their illegal activities.

Some Nepalis have anticipated that the police would act very fast and justice would prevail once you are in power. Nothing has happened to this end. Victims still need to take their issues to the streets to get justice. For example, thousands of the family members of victims of the enforced disappearances have not known whereabouts of their loved ones, yet. You have not been able to change the bad precedent set for the family members of the victims of road accidents or murders do not get justice without taking the issue to the streets causing inconvenience to the common people and economic losses. What prevent you to act fast and give compensation to the victims of such criminal acts or road accidents?

Concerning the formation of commission on finding out the whereabouts of the missing people you have said that you could not set up even such commission so far. Again we do not understand why do not you tell the Nepalis who prevented you from forming such commissions. If some leaders are doing so why do not you call on the Nepalese people to fight against such opposition. We do not see any excuse for not setting up various commissions and initiate acts on giving justice to the victims of the conflicts.

You acknowledged that your government’s decision made on the appointment to the vacant positions on the National Planning Commission had been wrong. Again the news in the Nepalese media has it that even the Vice-chairman of the National Planning Commission you have appointed is not agreeable to the appointees of your government and if you do not change the decisions the Vice-chairman is going to quit.  The truth is you cannot make everybody happy. There is bound to be somebody unhappy by your decision. So, once you have made the decision you need to stick to it no matter whether the Vice-chairman would stay or quit.

As a result of the fear of making mistakes in appointing to the vacant positions of the Public Service commission or any other commission you have jammed up the administration. So, on the one hand you complain that the bureaucracy does not move on the other hand you jammed up the traffic of the bureaucracy by not filling up the vacant positions on the Public Service Commission.

Even the judiciary has suffered for not having the judges at various levels of the court. Your Minister for Law Dev Gurung has not been able to come to terms with the member of the Judicial Council, Motikaji Sthapit appointed by former Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala on appointing judges to the various courts. It is understandable your minister wants to appoint the judges of his choice but it is the need of hour to come to term with other members of the Judicial Council to fill up the vacant positions. You cannot wait for the member you cannot work with to go and then appoint judges to the vacant positions.

You complained that you have a flood of ultimatums submitted by various political groups particularly the Madheshi friends. It is democracy everybody has rights to submit any ultimatum but you have to judge whether they have the people’s mandate on doing so or not and whether you have the people’s mandate on meeting their demands. So, again, if you follow the rule of law then you can sleep well without having much mental stress.

So far, most of the Madheshi friends’ demands have been for their rightful share in the state affairs, and of the Madheshi political parties have been for enforcing the agreement the previous government has reached with them. What has prevented you to give them the rightful share in the state affairs and what has prevented you from enforcing the agreements the previous government has reached with them? If you cannot meet all their demands immediately at least you can give them assurance of meeting their demands by initiating to meet some of their demands that could be met immediately. If you cannot do such things how could we find you different from former Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala who had simply signed one agreement after another and then ignored to enforce those agreements? That is one of the reasons why Nepalis have punished him, his family politicians and his party in the election for the Constituent Assembly held on April 10, 2008.

Your Finance Minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai on the one hand says that he is for the public-private partnership in the national development on the other hand says that the education and the health sectors are for the government and advises the private sector to move away from those two sectors. What your Finance Minister wants to do is to downgrade the high standard education the private sector has been providing to the people to the level of the standard the state schools have been providing. Similarly, your Finance Minister wants to downgrade the high standard health services the private sector has been providing to the level of the service the state hospitals have been providing. Most of the parents having sufficient resources to send their children to high standard schools will send their children to the schools in the neighboring countries; similarly, many patients able to afford high cost medical services will go to somewhere for better medical services. Thus, Nepal will lose billions of rupees to the foreign schools and hospitals if the Finance Minister does what he says.

If you really want to see Nepal develop fast you need to reduce the state control over anything except for keeping the law and order and defending the country from outside invasion. We have seen the worst possible results of the state-controlled businesses in the neighboring and far away countries, too. Why do not you take the lessons from those results and let Nepalis work for their own development. Sooner you learn the lessons the better will be for you for your party and for all Nepalis.

Your Defense Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa, ‘Badal’ said that the National Convention of cadres of your party has envisaged different democracy than the conventional democracy most of us understand. We do not want any other sorts of democracy but the democracy that ensures fundamental human rights such as freedom of press (expression), independent judiciary, multi-party competitive political system, and rights to information.

However, as of mid December 2008, your government has stopped the websites of the state-run newspapers such as ‘The Rising Nepal’ and ‘Gorkhapatra’ denying the information to the millions of Nepalis living abroad and reading online newspapers. Similarly, you have stopped the websites of ‘your office and Council of Minister’, ‘Government of Nepal’ and ‘National Planning Commission’ again denying the rights of Nepalis to information. What are all these things about?

On December 10, 2008, addressing the 60th anniversary of the International Human Rights day held by National Human Rights Commission of Nepal you said that your concept of human rights was different from the Human Rights defined by powerful countries or donor agencies; you were for protecting the rights of the citizens. This is a fishy statement you made and it sounds that you have something in your mind that you do not want to disclose to the people.

In the first week of December 2008, you have been saying in public that the status quoits have been the hurdles to your administration, so you cannot move fast; you would go to the people for a peaceful revolution if you cannot change this status quo. Your Defense Minister has been talking about different democracy from the already established democracy, your Finance Minister is for a gradual state control over education and health, you have different concept of human rights and finally you want to go to the people for a new mandate; are not all these things only excuses for you grabbing the power and imposing the sort of democracy you want? If these are things you are after then you are digging your own grave.

We understand that you have been keeping the coalition government intact and you even go on saying that you will go to the people if you cannot keep the government intact. Communicating properly with all the partners in the coalition government and doing everything good for the people are the two main mantras for you to keep your position in the government. As already said you cannot please everybody but if you do well for all the people then no matter what other political maniacs say and do, people will be on your side. Then you can go to the people and get their support.

Some political leaders while in power do everything possible for their families and politicians making money and go to the people after they lose power to the opponents. For example, former Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala had done everything possible for saving the monarchy and made his family members and politicians of his party able to make money while he was in power. So, most of his family members and other candidates of his party that have made a lot of money and advocated the saving of the monarchy lost the election. Now, Girija Prasad Koirala goes to the different political rallies held by his party and says to the people there that the Maoists have been attempting to enforce an authoritarian rule.

Girija Prasad Koirala says that he has been fighting for democracy for sixty years of his political life making Nepalis to guffaw. We have not seen any other politician so authoritarian than Girija Prasad Koirala has been. As recently as in December 2008, he has been the parliamentary leader without an election. He simply said to his party men and women, “I am the parliamentary leader.” That is it and everybody accepted it.

Not long ago, Girija Prasad Koirala said that if the Constituent Assembly failed in crafting a constitution he would float a constitution; even before that he had said that if a new constitution could not be crafted, he has a constitution of 1990. How dare such a politician of the national standing if not international and claiming to be a democrat says such rubbish.

So, an undemocratic-minded self-declared democrat such as Girija Prasad Koirala cannot harm anybody but only him and his party holding mass rallies that do not make any sense of democracy. In addition, other political maniacs such as former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist and Leninist (CPN-UML) Madhav Kumar Nepal and former Deputy Prime Minister KP Oli cannot harm anybody but themselves saying so many illogical things in the public. Another political fanatic Kamal Thapa still dreams of returning the monarchy that the Nepalis have rejected once and for all. However, they are nothing but political maniacs, and would not be able to disturb you in running the administration.

So, Prime Minister Prachanda and your fellow cabinet members have not to be scare of what these guys have been saying in public. You simply have to follow the people’s mandate and run the administration on the rules and regulations and follow the rule of law, Nepalis will be on your side but it is hard to believe it has been happening. So, before it is too late follow the rule of law punish those people who violate it. So far, you have been letting to happen any possible violation of law. It is not going to be good for you and the people of Nepal. The result is the flood of ultimatums, street demonstration, roadblocks, countrywide strikes and so on. Even state employees have been on strikes. It has been too much for the Nepalis; you have to do something for stopping such sorts of lawlessness.

December 13, 2008.

P.S. Your police continue to say your travel a ‘sawari’ (royal word), and stop all other vehicles on the road for you to travel safely and smoothly making inconvenience as much as possible to all as did Gyanendra Shah in the past, for which Kathmanduites hated him very much. You say that you want to bring changes in all aspects of the Nepalese life but what is happening is more than status quo. Be aware of all these things.