News, Views From Nepal

Yuba Nath Lamsal Ultimately it is the general populace that suffers the most when nation’s politics goes erratic and ceases to function on the basis of universally accepted democratic rules, norms and values.   When democratic values and norms are trampled, it creates the situation that only leads to dictatorship. This is exactly the situation that had paved the way for the rise of Hitler in democratic Germany and Ferdinand Marcos in Philippines. Germany’s Weimer constitution was one of the most democratic constitutions in the world. But under the same constitution, Hitler rose to power and unleashed his Nazi holocaust, a blot on the history of human civilization. The rulers in Germany infringed upon democratic and constitutional norms and values one after another under different pretext, which ultimately invited a great disaster on human civilization. Similarly, Ferdinand Marcos of Philippines was the most popular politician and a democratic icon in the beginning. Ho...

Yuba Nath Lamsal Politics is supposed to be a power to empower the people—mostly the powerless and voiceless. That is what democratic polity should strive for and that should be the fundamental principle of democracy. Unfortunately though, this is not the case in the contemporary democratic politics of Nepal. So Nepal’s politics is most unpredictable. Morale, values and principles hardly matter in Nepali politics and what matters is power. It is, thus, said ‘politics makes strange bedfellow’. This is what exactly has happened in the internal politics of the CPN-UML—the second largest party in the Constituent Assembly. In the newer twist of events in the internal politics of CPN-UML, the arch rivals have become bosom friends, whereas friends have turned foes. What made these two arch rivals come together and form an alliance? Is this their own making or some external factors, too, are behind this? Will Oli-Bamdev alliance will go be permanent arrangement that will go a long ...

Yuba Nath Lamsal Democracy, as a political system, has attracted global attention and interest in the present 21 st century. In other words, democracy has become a modern culture. One cannot deny democracy if one is to be regarded as the equal member of human society in the present context. But it remains to be seen what type of democracy we are really looking for. This is the reason why democratic upsurge has swept all over the world forcing the dictators of various kinds to give in to the power of people.   This is how democratic society and regimes have been established in the world. The growing craze for democracy among the new generation of people has swept the world. As a result, many countries have adopted genuine democratic political or representative democracy. In some cases, rulers just try to give a kind of democratic façade to the regimes just to escape public rage and international criticism. But there is one stark reality the world has witnessed at present is...

Yuba Nath Lamsal Now the election is over that has again produced a hung Constituent Assembly. In the election, the earlier underdogs, the Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML have emerged as the first and the second largest forces while the earlier largest party the UCPN-Maoist has been rendered to the position of the distant third with mere 80 seats in the 601 House. Although many have cast doubt over the fairness and impartiality of the electoral process, political parties that participated in the election have accepted the results with some degree of apprehension. Accordingly, the meeting of the Constituent Assembly has already started and parliamentary session summoned. With the formation of the new Constituent Assembly, fresh process has started for both constitution writing process as well as the formation of a new government. The Constituent Assembly has twin functions—writing of the constitution and also carrying out the works of parliament. Thus, both processes are expec...