News, Views From Nepal

  Yuba Nath Lamsal Even as liberal democracy is said to be what Francis Fukuyama says ‘the default from of the government in much of the world’ a new study has revealed that more and more countries are experiencing a marked erosion in the state of democracy and are reverting slowly to authoritarian trend under the facade of democratic set-up. According to the study of International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) on the state of democracy, 70 per cent of the global population currently lives either in non-democratic regimes or in democratically backsliding countries. Similarly, the Freedom House, which studies the health of the democracies in the world, says in its 2021 report that democracy is in a long recession. It says, “In every region of the world, democracy is under attack”. The Freedom House concluded that democracy declined in 73 countries in the world including India, while it slightly got better only in 28 countries. This global dem...

  Yuba Nath Lamsal A season of political jamborees has started in Nepal. Parties are set to hold mandatory national congresses. All major parties are doing their homework for their gala meetings probably within a couple months. CPN-UML seems to be ahead in this process. The UML is holding its national congress in Chitwan this month in which it expects to pull a crowd of at least half a million people on the bank of Narayani River. Other parties are to follow. Nepali Congress and CPN-Maoist Centre, too, have announced plans to hold their national congress soon. As a precursor of the mega event, a political jamboree of the UML called the statute convention was held sometimes ago in Godavari, Lalitpur with pomp and fanfare. UML chairman KP Sharma Oli might have been carried away and thrilled by the presence of a large number of diehard loyalists and display of his big cut-outs in the conclave. However, he should not be mistaken by the presence of a few thousand people as...

 Yuba Nath Lamsal A political party is a collective expression of people having identical interests, values, principles and commitment to certain cause and mission. Greek philosopher Plato in ‘The Republic’ talks about factions and groups in politics of ancient Greece, which, in a way, can be termed as the early version of political parties. However, the history of modern political parties goes back to the early 19th century with the formation of the Conservative or Tory Party in the United Kingdom in 1823 followed by Democratic Party in the United States in 1828. The birth, growth and development of the political parties went along with the development of democracy. In multi-party democracy, political parties and democracy are like Siamese twins. Political parties are the principal basis, without which democracy cannot survive, grow and prosper. Democratic polity, thus, is inconceivable in the absence of political parties. Politics is a public domain and its sole obj...