Valueless Politics, Visionless Leaders

Yuba Nath Lamsal
If we look at the behavior of the political parties and overtures of the leaders, we reach an easy conclusion that our leaders and parties have not yet come of the age. The political leaders often make immature and sometimes ambiguous statements that provide sufficient ground for the critics to arrive at the conclusion that people who are currently t the political helms of affairs in Nepal are just political upstarts but not leaders. It may take years for them to get maturity and, some of them, perhaps, may never attaint that level. Unless someone attains full maturity, he/she can by no means be called a leader, not to talk of the statesman.

Mature leaders and statesmen have certain vision, ideological clarity and set goals that make him/her different from the rest of others in the flock of political movers and shakers. In the absence of mature leaders and visionary statesmen, country’s politics remain embroiled in confusion, uncertainty and chaos. The chaotic atmosphere only provides ground to crooks, scoundrels and criminals to reap benefits. In such a situation, honest and genuine political activists and leaders are often pushed to oblivion and their role is always underestimated and undermined.

Politics is an art of statecraft which should ensure a better governance, better delivery of goods and better law and order through which politicians, leaders and parties win trust of the people in a massive way. Politics is the engine that pulls the country towards right direction—the direction of peace, stability and prosperity. In the driving seats are always the politicians whose role and responsibility is to take the vehicle of the country to a safe and appropriate direction in which people feel safe, secure and relieved. If those in the driver’s seat are not well trained, well educated, well intentioned and do not have vision and orientation, they often meet with an accident which may claim lives of the passengers. The country is also like a vehicle and the people like passengers. The steering of the country is in the hands of leaders. If leaders are badly trained or untrained, the country may crash having disastrous impact on the life of the people.

We have political parties and we call top brass of these parties as our leaders. We have no choice other than trusting them. In a multi-party democracy, political parties are the key players. Although their performance is poor and their capability is below standard, we must trust them because seeking alternative to political parties would be yet another political disaster.

In way, we, too, may be responsible for the kind of leaders we have. ‘As are the people, so are the leaders’ goes the maxim. It is also the failure of people not to keep vigil on leaders and check them from going into wrong direction. Good leadership is all about making life of the people better. But it is exactly the reverse in the case of Nepal. But the paramount objective of the Nepali leaders is to grab power and retain it as long as possible. They would do everything possible by hook or by crook to cling onto power. Once they are in power, they think that they are in power forever. Being in power, their priorities change and immediately forget the people and their base from which they rose to power. While in power, their focus remains to amass wealth through any means—legal or otherwise. As a result, corruption becomes pervasive and good governance and service delivery remains only in rhetoric. The people suffer from bad governance, weak law and order and rampant corruption.

This is exactly the case in the present day Nepal. Corruption is rampant, delivery of service is poor, law and order is weak, inflation sky rocketed and hoarding and artificial scarcity of essential commodities is a daily phenomenon. This is what the people have got from their own elected government. This is not the case with any particular government but a general phenomenon of all governments that were formed after Nepal was declared a democratic republic.

It is not to say that there was good governance and good delivery of services in the past and things got worse only after Nepal was declared as a democratic republic following the success of the Jana Andolan II. The previous governments, too, were corrupt, inefficient and incompetent. It is intended to say that the governments in New Nepal should have been different from the governments of Old Nepal under monarchical regime.

Nepal is currently in political transition. All political transitions in the world are painful, which are often characterized by instability, uncertainty, weak law and order.  Scrupulous people always reap benefit from the uncertain state of the country during transition. This is not an isolated case of any particular country but and general tendency in all countries. All countries in the world that went through political transition had experienced similar situation. Thus, transition needs to be shortened as early as possible. Nepal’s present transition has been unnecessarily long which has cost the country very dearly. This transition should have been over two years ago. But transitions still continues and it is not yet certain when this transition would come to an end.

Nepal’s protracted transition, which is in place for more than six years, is due to either incompetence of the parties and leaders or their sheer unwillingness to end transition. Had the political parties and leaders were genuinely determined to end the transition and give the country a tangible outlet to the present political deadlock, the transition could have been ended long ago. It seems that parties are deliberately prolonging the transition because they are not sure about the post transition political course and their position in the national politics. The long-drawn-out political transition is, therefore, making of our political parties because they want to reap benefits from the transitional politics.

The transition would have come to an end if the Constituent Assembly had delivered a constitution in time. Unfortunately the Constituent Assembly failed miserably in its duty to give the country a new constitution in time. The failure and dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was carefully choreographed by political parties mainly the Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML. This is because the political parties did not want constitution at all and they looked for a suitable excuse to let the Constituent Assembly die its natural death. In the first place, the constitution, if it had at been promulgated, would be a document of compromise, which would not be in their partisan interest. The parties had their different standings and views on several key issues concerning the constitution. If the constitution was to be promulgated, all parties would have to make compromise, which they did not want. If they had compromised on their core agenda, they will have no issue to go the people.

The Constituent Assembly, republican set up, secularism, federalism with ethnic identity and proportionate representation are the Maoist agenda. Other parties were of the view that promulgation of the new constitution would institutionalize these Maoist agendas which would further establish and popularize the UCPN-Maoist among the people. Moreover, the Congress and UML had serious differences with the Maoists on the governance and federalism model. Thus, they chose the harsh path that led to the demise of Constituent assembly. The UCPN-Maoist, too, was not enthusiastic in promulgating the new constitution because the statue that was to be promulgated would not be the ones they had wanted. Given the composition of Constituent Assembly and power equation, the Maoists would have to make compromise on some key issues it had raised. Instead of agreeing on the constitution that did not fully incorporate its agenda, the Maoists opted for a fresh election.

On the demise of the Constituent Assembly and protracted transition, all major parties are responsible. Now a new political and constitutional crisis has emerged, which political parties had not earlier visualized. This is illustrative of the fact that our leaders were visionless. In the absence of vision in the leaders, the politics of the country is bound to be derailed. This is the case with the present day Nepal. In this situation, only a statesman, who rises above the partisan interests, can rescue and lead the country taking all the people, belonging to different ideological hues, along. Unfortunately, we do not have any statesmen, which is the reason behind the sorry state of our politics. Let us hope a good leader or statesman emerges out of this crisis.