Country hostage of indecision

Nepal is currently has become hostage of indecision. The indecision is not because of anything but personal and partisan greed and arrogance of leaders and their parties. The country is in the worst form of transition for a long time but there have not been serious attempt on the part of key political actors of the country to steer of the country out of the transition and give an amicable outlet. Instead parties and leaders are trying to reap benefit from the situation of crisis, which is the most unfortunate part of our politics. And this is the fundamental reason why country is mired in political crisis one after another.

Niccolo Machiavelli, a 15^th century’s historian and political philosopher of Italy, once said that politics is the art of cunning. Machiavelli’s definition is not always true especially in the modern day’s politics. Until medieval era, politics was taken as a means to control resources and use it for personal and group’s interest. In such a situation politics became brutal exercise of power, which resorted to all tactics, moral or immoral, to gain power and retain it.  In modern concept, politics is an art of governance. However, developing country’s governments/governance are often characterized by the Machiavelli’s definition of politics, be it democracy or otherwise. In dictatorship of all forms, which many developing countries of Asia and Africa still continue to practice, the case is exactly the same, as rulers are masters and the rest are subjects but not citizens. Even in democracies of some developing countries, the rule of the game has not changed and the people continue to suffer from misrule and bad governance where rulers are masters and people are servants. In a way, Nepal, too, is not an exception, as the concept of modern democracy is still far from being fully put into practice to the best satisfaction of the people.

The present scenario of Nepal is the manifestation of our utter failure to put the democratic norms and values into practice. Parties are not functioning as parties. There are parties (factions) within parties. Factional bickering and squabbling are so ugly that they are behaving not like party leaders but tribal lords. Internal democracy is least observed and practiced in parties. Until two decades ago, parties used to choose their chiefs during the national congress and all other members of central bodies including office bearers would be handpicked by the party chief. It was not a democratic practice, which did not promote internal democracy within parties. This gave rise to the system in which party chief was all in all and everything revolved around the party boss. Other members had virtually no saying in decision making. The fate and future of cadres and leaders of the party depended upon the whim and will of the party chief. Thus, none could dare raise any question against the party chief.  But the system of selecting central committee of the party began two decades ago as the CPN-UML for the first time in the history of Nepalese politics made it mandatory that at least half of the members were elected by the delegates in the national congress. Later other parties followed suit. Now all parties have the provision of directly electing most of the central leaders and office bearers, which has no room for handpicking members and office bearers in the party’s top decision-making level. This has prevented the party chief to be arbitrary. Despite this general rule, all is still not well as party chiefs still continue to have sway in all decision-making processes.

Norms and values are also not strictly observed and maintained in parties and also in the policy and decision making process. Decisions are made in a way that suit personal and partisan interests rather than the overall interest of the country and the people. As a result, parties’ functionaries are not functioning in a democratic manner.

The country is currently in a protracted transition that has lasted for almost a decade. Although Nepal has been in perpetual transition right from the time the country was founded, the current has been more severe. Throughout history, only experiments were made in our political spectrum. As a result, the country was run on ad hoc basis, which led the country to be in transition from one system to another. Every time when systemic change took place in Nepal, it was expected that it would bring about stability in governance and political system. But that has hardly happened in Nepal’s political history. This situation is due to parties’ narrow and sectarian tendency that makes the parties and leaders to be focused heavily on partisan agenda and personal benefit. As parties and leaders get too much engaged in personal and partisan interest, it is obvious that national agendas and interest take a back seat. This is exactly what has happened in our country.

This is the time to give the country a new, democratic and patriotic constitution that could be owned up by all people, irrespective of their ethnic, ideological, lingual, cultural and regional affinity and connections. But parties are not trying to give a constitution of the country but the one that incorporates their partisan agenda. This is exactly the problem that has stalled and obstructed the constitution writing process and complicated the political situation of the country. It seems that no party is serious to write the country’s constitution and give an outlet to the present political crisis. Parties and leaders are calculating their gains and losses out of the present political situation. Until and unless the parties rise above this narrow and sectarian attitude, the constitution cannot be promulgated and political crisis addressed.

Now ruling and opposition parties are sharply divided not on the issues but on the methods and approaches of constitution promulgation. It does not matter whether constitution is written through consensus and voting process. What matters is the issues and contents the constitution will contain. The crux of problem in constitution writing is the federalism and its model. The parties are divided on this issue. The ruling parties want minimum federal provinces on to be created the basis of economic viability, whereas the main opposition UCPN-Maoist is advocating identity-based federalism and accordingly more federal states. Madhesi parties are not concerned with both the models and their only demand is the single Madhes provinces incorporating the entire plain areas of the south right from the eastern border and western border point. The demand of one single Madhes province is not feasible as it has been raised with ill intention of some Madhesi leaders. In fact, Madhesi people are not in favor of this demand. Thus, parties now need to sit for dialogue and settle the issues taking the national interest at the top of all other agenda. If dialogue was held rising above partisan interest, solution can easily be found and the country can be given a constitution that ensures ownership of all section and sectors of Nepalese citizenry.