Political Checks and Balances

Great betrayal to the country and people

Yuba Nath Lamsal

The Constituent assembly died its natural death but without producing a constitution, for which it was formed four years ago through election. This demise of Constituent Assembly is natural because it had already survived more than it had to be. The Constituent Assembly was to write the constitution in two years which was the original provision in the Interim Constitution. The parties and their candidates had also promised that they would give the country a new constitution within two years as stipulated in the Interim Constitution. However, the CA utterly failed in its job right from the beginning, for which political parties and their principal leaders are to be blamed.

Prior to the election, there had been different predictions about the election results. Most people had projected the CPN-UML as the possible winner and the UML leaders, too, were quite hopeful of better electoral performance. A section of political analysts had subscribed to the view that the Nepali Congress would emerge winner in the triangular contest among the three major forces—the Nepali Congress, CPN-UML and the UCPN-Maoists. The Nepali Congress, too, was hopeful of electoral gain on the basis of its analysis that it would get all non-communist votes while the communist votes would be divided between the Maoists and the UML. However, the electoral results were unexpected which was shocking to all political forces and others who were closely watching the Nepal’s CA election. Even the Maoists were not confident of its stunning electoral performance.

The parties began to play with the fate of the Nepalese people right after the

CA elections, despite their promises to the people to work for the interest of the country and the people. The parties got bogged down more in power politics than in their primary task of constitution writing. During the four years since the CA election was held, four different governments were formed, which is evident of the parties’ priority to power. The task of the constitution writing was taken a back seat. Two years for which they were elected to complete the constitution writing were wasted as nothing was done during this period. But parties happily and without any hesitation amended the constitution and extended the life of the Constituent Assembly for one year, which was the beginning of breach of promises and betrayal to the people and the country. Even in the extended period, the CA failed to come up with a constitution and parties again extended the life of the CA. They started to repeatedly extending the term of the CA and it was felt that they would do it for indefinite period bleeding the national exchequer without doing any good job. The extension of the CA tenure was just to cover up their failure and ensure their perks and benefits. But the Supreme Court applied brake on further extension. In a historic verdict, the Supreme Court clearly ruled that the fourth extension would be the last one because the parties cannot extend the CA time indefinitely. As a result, the CA ceased to exist from May 29, 2012. Despite the decision of the Supreme Court against further extension, the government had registered a bill in Legislative-Parliament for the life of the CA. But this effort went in vain because of non-cooperation from opposition parties. Had the Supreme Court not given its verdict against further extension, parties would have repeated the same old practice for their perks and facilities. This shows the height of irresponsibility of the political parties.

When the efforts of extension failed, the government chose to go for a fresh election. Now controversy is going on in Nepal’s political and legal circle. The government has defended its decision to announce the fresh election for the new Constituent Assembly as election is the best democratic exercise, while the opposition parties have rejected the election to be conducted by the Maoist-led government. The opposition parties have dubbed the election announcement as a tactic to capture power. They have demanded that all-party government be formed to conduct the election for which the Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai must quit. Whatever the logics and counter logics, the failure to write the constitution in four years is betrayal to the people and a big waste of national exchequer.

There is no doubt that election is the best democratic process to involve people in political process. But elections are expensive for poor countries like Nepal. More than 10 billion rupees were spent for the election of the Constituent Assembly and salaries/allowances of its members during the last four years. Since the CA members did nothing, how should this money be compensated? Moreover, there is still no guarantee that the constitution would be written even when the new Constituent Assembly was formed. Since parties have already failed utterly in producing the constitution in four years, what moral authority they have to seek votes from the people. And what is the guarantee that they would not repeat the same mistake again. The political parties and their leaders must answer these questions of the people.

The crux of the problem that led the Constituent Assembly to fail and collapse is the federalism issue. All political parties, except a few fringe ones have committed to the federal model. As a result, the Interim Constitution has declared Nepal as a federal democratic republic. In the first place, our parties committed mistake by committing to federalism without national debate. Although federalism is not bad in itself, is it suitable for Nepal? There are both success stories as well as failures of federalism in the world. We should have conducted national debate on this issue but parties accepted federalism without seeking people’s opinion. This is an indicative of the fact that our parties act in arbitrary and authoritarian style and manner and take the people just for granted.

The parties had and still have no idea what federalism really means. Without comprehending its pros and cons, they accepted federalism in the Interim Constitution. There should have been debate whether federalism was necessary for a small country like Nepal. Federalism is a concept to provide the service delivery at the door step of the people. In big countries, federalism makes sense but not in the small countries like ours. Nepal is a tiny country that is smaller than federal provinces of its neighboring countries. For example, Nepal is smaller than Tibet Autonomous province of China and Utter Pradesh and Bihar of India. So there is absolutely no necessity of federalism in Nepal. If power decentralization was genuinely practiced, it would have been much better for Nepal. Similarly, federalism is a costly venture which is not feasible for a poor country like Nepal.

More than that the model of federalism is the most controversial. Our political parties have not been able to resolve this issue. The Maoists and some ethnic and indigenous groups have demanded federalism on ethnic line whereas other parties have opposed it. This issue became more complicated when other groups mainly Brahmins, Chhetris, dalits (oppressed class) and some other groups, who constitute almost half of Nepal’s population, came heavily against the ethnicity-based federalism. They are of the view that ethnicity-based federalism disrupts the social and communal harmony which would ultimately led to communal tension and even split of the country. More dangerous is the demand of the single autonomous Madhes state with the right to self-determination behind which external hands are suspected.

Already skeptical about federalism, the protests against ethnicity-based federalism encouraged Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML to stand against the type of federal model the Maoists are demanding. Even the Maoists were also little bit discouraged because of the heavy protests of the Brahmin, Chhetris, dalits and others.  The Maoists feared political backlash. As a result, this controversy created the situation that the new constitution would stir hornets’ nest in Nepal. If federalism was accepted on ethnic line other groups would protest and reject the constitution and if the ethnic-based federalism was not accepted, indigenous people and different nationalities would have rejected it. The federalism issue became a thorny issue which would create more conflict in the society. The parties, thus, chose to shelve the entire constitution making process.

The failure of the constitution writing by the Constituent Assembly has definitely shocked everyone. This is a height of incompetence of the political parties, their leaders and the members of the Constituent Assembly. But there is a silver lining behind this failure as well. The failure has its positive aspect as it has prevented the country from sliding into another round of conflict in the name of federal model. Now this chapter has come to an end and a new chapter has begun. Election is a must to resolve the political issues and in the present political and constitutional vacuum, consensus of the major political force is a must. Political consensus and unity of the major parties alone can address the problem created by the political vacuum.