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Direct Election To A Chief Executive And Prosperity
Direct Election To A Chief Executive And Prosperity
Siddhi B Ranjitkar
Some politicians have been arguing that the political stability and the prosperity are inter linked; so the country needs a strong executive directly elected from the people so that s/he would be accountable to the people; s/he would need to do something for the prosperity of the country. Other politicians say that such a directly elected executive could turn to be a dictator. Both the politicians arguing for and against the political stability and prosperity are partially correct.
The activities of former Prime Minister KP Oli during the last week of his office in the end of July 2016, have amply demonstrated that he could be a dictator. He did not want to quit the office following the Constitution. He tried to prove that he had the term of office until the end of the life of the current parliament. He used the freak constitutional experts to show the so-called flaws the Constitution had that Oli could use for staying on in power.
Oli had been in the minority after the Maoist ministers en mass quit the government, and the Maoist-Center publicly declared that it had pulled out the support for Prime Minister Oli, and it has in conjunction with the NC has registered the no-confidence vote against him. Oli had to immediately resign from the office and pave the way for another government to form if he were sincere to the Constitution and the democracy. The irony had been that Oli refused to quit the office even after some other coalition-partner ministers quit his government leaving him and his few deputies in office.
Oli’s deputies such as CP Mainali, Chitra Bahadur KC, and Kamal Thapa went on running from pillar to post trying to find the ways and means to save the government from falling. They read through the Constitution not once but several times with the funky constitutional experts. Even the Oli’s party colleagues did not believe that what Oli had been doing was correct and constitutional.
Sincere constitutional expert as well the former Supreme Court justice has said that the Constitution has the clear provision for changing the government at any time during the transitional period. Oli did not want to listen to the real legal and constitutional expert rather stuck to his deputies and remained reluctant to leave the office until the parliament was about to force him out of the office.
Oli’s official legal advisor Attorney General advised him to announce his resignation at the end of the speech when he has to face the no-confidence vote in the parliament if he would not like to resign before that but Oli had been already entangled in the web of finding the flaws in the Constitution, and his constitutional experts had been saying that the Constitution had no provision for forming a next government after Oli quit the office totally disregarding the Articles in the Constitution clearly stating how to form a new government in case of the prime minister leaving the office for any reasons. Is it not the Oli’s and his deputies’ intention to stay on in power by any possible means?
Ultimately, in order to save the Oli’s face and his divisive constitutional experts, the Attorney General proposed the President removing the hurdles to forming a new government. So, before going to the parliament Oli submitted his resignation to the President, and the recommendation for removing the hurdles to form a new government as if Oli had been so smart to correct the flaws in the Constitution. He delivered a two-hour long speech to the parliament, and then he announced his resignation. The President accepted his resignation and the recommendation the Oli government submitted, and she passed the recommendations to the parliament, and the parliament endorsed it. Chairman of Maoist-Center Prachanda thanked Oli for resigning rather than facing the no-confidence vote in the parliament.
What would happen if Oli had been directly elected? Oli loved to be a powerful ruler. He wanted to show how popular he had been among the people even though he had done nothing to be so popular but Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi did everything for him to be so popular among the Nepalese. His sycophants had compared Oli with the despotic rulers of the past, and they gave him a pat on the back for firmly standing against the Indian blockade even though it had caused the shortage of fuel and then everything at the short supply.
Oli listened to the anti-federalists such as CP Mainali, Chitra Bahadur KC, Kamal Thapa, and Narayan Man Bijuckchhe. They believed that they could do something against federalism if they could keep Oli not falling from power. They did everything possible for Oli to continue the office. Chairman Bijuckchhe even proposed to dissolve the parliament and call for fresh elections. He either did not read the Constitution or disregarded the provision made in the Constitution for not dissolving the current parliament until the elections to the Federal Parliament would be held.
People applauded Prime Minister Oli because he stood against the Indian blockade even doing nothing to ease the blockade not to mention to act on lifting the blockade through the proper diplomatic channel. In the name of standing against the Indian blockade, Nepalese people backed Oli even tolerating the worst social, economical and financial hardship. Staying on the fence, Prime Minister Oli simply harvested the credit for the failure of the Indian Prime Minister Narendrad Modi in attempting to bend the Nepalese people.
Currently, the central committee of the CPN-UML has been discussing how to propagate the good things the Oli government had done. What good things Oli had done; first they needed to say clearly to the people. During his nine-month term of office, Oli sat with folded hands for more than five months during the Indian blockade. Nepalese people tolerated the hardship. He reaped the benefits of the blockade running the parallel trade as much as possible.
Oli did hardly anything to enforce the Constitution and to resolve the Madheshi and the ethnic issues. He had not developed any legal and political infrastructures required for the enforcement of the Constitution. He came out with the schedule for holding the elections to the local bodies, States and the Federal Parliament without any legal bases. He was to hold the local body elections following the old local body structures rather than the structures required by the new Constitution.
Prime Minister Oli practically did nothing to resolve the Madheshi issues. He had proposed the amendment to the constitution and the two-thirds majority votes had amended it just only to satisfy the Indian establishment. It did not meet the demands of the Madheshi leaders. The Madheshi movement continued rather less aggressively than used to be. The Madheshi leaders had earned a lot of hatred of the Nepalese for pretending to block the supply trucks entering Nepal from India causing tremendous hardship.
Oli set up a high level committee to look into the Madheshi issues but he made his deputy Kamal Thapa the coordinator. He knew Thapa was a staunch opponent of the federalism, and he would not agree to give in to any of the Madheshi demands. He also knew that without resolving the Madheshi issues it would be almost impossible to hold any elections. So, Oli had been neither for enforcing the Constitution nor for resolving the Madheshi and the ethnic issues.
Oli also has disastrously failed in convincing NC: the largest political party in the parliament of the need for NC going with him to the enforcement of the Constitution. Rather, he arrogantly went alone disregarding the stand the NC had taken on the political business, and on resolving the political issues the Madheshi leaders had raised. The result has been the NC went for a coalition with the Maoist–Center, and the Federal Democratic Alliance.
Concerning the foreign policy, Oli must have the wrong impression that he could disregard the southern neighbor and take the shelter in the northern neighbor. He must have the strong belief that he could stand firmly against any forces with the support of China. However, he failed to understand that he was depending on China for everything he would need. He must have taken a hint from his deputy Kamal Thapa of how the then despotic King Mahendra had stood against the Indian pressure with the support of the then Chairman Mao Zedong of China in 1960s. Some reporters and opinion writers have even compared Oli with Mahendra for standing against India.
The successive political events have proved that the Mahendra’s step taken in 1960s has been the disaster for his dynasty not to mention to the Nepalese, and the democratic system of governance. Ironically, Oli did not learn from the historical facts, and he went with the regressive forces represented by his deputies such as Kamal Thapa, CP Mainali and Chitra Bahadur KC that had been deadly against the federalism. Oli had the strong support of another anti-federalist: Chairman of NWPP Mr. Narayan Man Bijuckchhe that had advised Oli to dissolve the parliament and call for fresh elections.
Paradoxically, in the 21st century, the so-called communist leaders such as Narayan Man Bijuckchhe, Chitra Bahadur KC, and CP Mainali in conjunction with the monarchist such as Kamal Thapa strongly came out against the federalism whereas in 1960s the king killed the democracy. They loved to call themselves nationalists. Prime Minister Oli presided over them. Are they nationalists? Certainly not, as they would not be able to protect he sovereignty of the country because they did not have the people’s support to do so.
Now, turning to the economics, what Oli had done for the economic prosperity of Nepal when the GDP growth had sunk to 0.77% against the projected growth of 6.5% for the fiscal year 2015 due to the blockade India imposed on Nepal. What he could do was resolve the blockade diplomatically but he did not try it. Nepalese had suffered from the blockade, and Nepalese tolerated the hardship for the non-performance of Oli. He could have used the armed police to escort the fuel tankers to enter Nepal and then travel to their destinations. He did not think about that, too. The result had been the absolutely low GDP growth during the term of office of Prime Minister Oli.
The next option Oli had was to bring the fuel from China at any cost that also he did not try it. He just pretended to talk to the Chinese for bringing fuel from the north. He had even joked that he would connect every house with a cooking gas so that Nepalese would have just to turn on the gas in their kitchens when Nepalese had to use every possible source of energy for cooking, when restaurants and hoteliers had to close their businesses due to the lack of gas for cooking. Such sorts of fun Oli was making of the Nepalese people doing nothing for the smooth economic and business activities caused the tremendous loss of business for the Nepalese people.
Now, taking up the political stability and the economic and social prosperity of Nepal, many politicians and political analysts have been writing about the need for the political stability for the economic development. So, they prescribed for a directly elected chief executive that would be able to work without worries of losing power for her/his term of office, hoping that such an executive would perform in the interest of the people but we have many examples that some of such directly executives did not perform, and some of them certainly turned out to be the dictators that became the killers of their opponents.
The political stability Nepal had already proved that such stability did not bring any economic and social prosperity rather pushed the country back to the poverty and economic backwardness. We don’t need to go back to the 240-year Shah-Rana rule but the 104-year of the autocratic Rana family rule was enough to see for judging how the political stability worked during this unique political stability. The Rana prime ministers had not only did nothing for the economic and social development but also pushed the country back believing that the prosperous Nepalese would challenge their tyrannical rule.
Immediately after the fall of the Rana rule in 1951, Nepalese rushed to the development. They spontaneously opened up schools, libraries, colleges, ran classes at houses, even at the public hangout places called ‘pati’, and started off various sorts of businesses. Nepal was poised to develop within years of the fall of the despotic Rana rule even though the period was the political instability and the politicians squabbled over power. People had the spirit of development. I myself was the witness of such activities.
Unfortunately, again came the political stability in the form of Panchayat. What the then Panchas and the head of the Panchas the then King Mahendra did was ‘closed all libraries people had opened up for educating the people, and seized all the private schools, and stopped opening any schools in private.’ The socio-economic development came to standstill. People had to do everything for the Panchayat and Pancha Leader the king. The thirty-year rule of the Panchayat under the king went astray without any significant economic development despite the slogan the then king floated ‘taking Nepal to the Asian standard’ without defining what was the standard. Thus, the Ranas and then the Panchas managed to keep the country backward under the political stability. Ranas and Panchas had been synonymous with the atrocities and corruption many times worst than the corruption Nepal has today.
Then, Nepalese again spilled their blood to finish off the unjust Panchayat rule headed by the despotic king, and buried the Panchayat forever in 1990. Then, the floodgate of the development opened up again. During the last 25 years, Nepal has practically no political stability but Nepalese have a marvelous social and economic prosperity if anybody is willing to see. Today, we have hundreds of FM radios, tens of TV stations, and rights to information unlike the controlled freedom of speech means speaking only for the Panchayat and the king during the Panchayat rule, so many medical colleges and private hospitals, business organizations, financial institutions, private banks, so many private airlines, information technology, huge development of poultry industry, fantastic increase of transport and communication, and many people came out of poverty primarily due to the millions of jobs created in country and millions of Nepalese working in foreign countries, so on and on. However, much more would have been, had the successive government been sincere and sincerely implemented particularly the hydropower projects and road infrastructures that were the backbone for any development.
Let the country have a new prime minister every nine months or a year or so it might not matter if Nepalese have free hands to do anything for the country for themselves. Any long lasting prime minister or any chief executive would not be good if s/he would bind the hands of the people and stop them from doing anything freely following the law.
What is the good for having a chief executive like Oli that has no sense of responsibility for running the country rightly but he is ready to risk everything only to earn the public support. He has a great sense of humor just to mock the people. He could be a great comedian if he were to like it. However, as a prime minister, he would have taken the country to a disastrous end.
Now, Oli’s supporters have been publicizing that current coalition partners have been for not enforcing the Constitution but for taking the country to the doomsday, and a foreign power has been behind the coalition partners. Most of the time, they blame the foreign power for their own faults stating the foreign power had been for toppling the Oli government. Chairman of RPP-Nepal Kamal Thapa also has been speaking the same language.
Gradually public talks have been exposing the clue about a secrete deal possibly Oli and Kamal Thapa have. Their respective political ideology does not permit them to stay in the same compartment after the breakup of the coalition but they seem to be on the same boat. Probably, they tied up with the string of being so-called nationalists. In fact, Kamal Thapa vowed to remain with Oli until the last minute. He did, and he came down crashing with Oli. They believed that they were nationalists.
It indicates that Oli’s intention has been heavily to remain in power by any possible means. It proves that the change of any chief executive needs to be fast to avoid anybody coming out to be too powerful and then becoming a dictator that would bring the political stability of the Ranas and then the Panchas. We don’t need such political stability anymore. We are in the 21st century, and practically nobody will be able to be a dictator anymore. Surely, the dreams of Oli and Kamal Thapa, CP Mainali, and Chitra Bahadur KC not to mention Narayan Man Bijuckchhe would not come true. They would be political villains in the history of Nepal.
The coalition government of NC and Maoist-Center presided over by Prime Minister Prachanda sent his two deputies: one to the north and another to the south for regularizing the diplomatic relations with both the neighbors in the context of the changed political situation in Nepal. The anti-federalists have gone, and the federalists have taken over. Chinese leaders have said that any change in the politics of Nepal is the business of the Nepalese whereas Indian Prime Minister Modi has been for Nepal having an inclusive Constitution acceptable to all stakeholders.
Deputy Prime Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara went to China, and met with his Chinese Counterpart and Chinese Prime Minister Li and delivered the invitation from the Nepalese president to the Chinese president to visit Nepal, and from the Nepalese prime minister to the Chinese prime to visit Nepal. However, DPM Mahara did not have an audience with the Chinese President, and returned to Nepal on Saturday, August 20, 2016. One day before DPM Mahara returned to Nepal, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Myanmar's State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, and assured her of any support Myanmar needs. China has many things at stake in Myanmar but not many in Nepal. So, why should the Chinese President care about giving an audience to the Nepalese special envoy?
Representing Prime Minister Prachanda as a special envoy, Deputy Prime Minister Bimalendra Nidhi flew to New Delhi on August 18, 2016 to deliver the invitation of Nepalese President Vidhya Bhandari to Indian President Pranav Mukherjee and the invitation of Nepalese Prime Minister Prachanda to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit Nepal, and to arrange the visit of the Nepalese Prime Minister Prachanda to India. He met with Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, the president and finally the prime minister. They were happy to receive the special envoy from Nepal.
Prime Minister Modi was eager to visit the Nepalese Hindu holy places such as Janaki Mandir in Janakpur, and Muktinath in the Mustang district, according to the media report. Prime Minister Modi had suspended his visit to those holy places after the relations with the Oli government deteriorated. Prime Minister Oli in turn suspended the visit of President Bhandari to India further deteriorating the relations between India and Nepal. And Oil went even further down recalling the Nepalese ambassador to India charging him with engaging in the activities against the Oli government.
On August 18, 2016, spokesman for the government also Minister for Information and Communications Mr. Surendra Kumar Karki said that the government set up a seven-member commission presided over by former Supreme Court Justice Girish Chandra Lal Das to investigate and prepare data on the loss of private and public property damaged during the Terai-Madhesh protest, and thus, the government addressed two major demands in the three-point agreement the government reached with the Federal Democratic Alliance before the formation of the new government led by Prachanda. He also said that the government would provide NPR one million to each family of the 52 persons, of them were 41 protestors and 11 security personnel killed during the Madhesh unrest. The Spokesman-cum-Minister informed that the government had approved the crafting of bills on the working procedure of local body elections.
http://therisingnepal.org.np/news/13791
August 21, 2016
