E-Kantipur

In the last two months, the big parties have been exposed to their barest animal elements. They can disregard any and every element of moral responsibility to safeguard the national interest when faced with the question of power. I pity myself and the gamut of well meaning people for having to live under such lustful and incompetent leaders. I had never imagined that the country had such a naked poverty of responsible leaders. All the so-called leaders have turned out to be shamelessly irresponsible towards the nation. Nepal is really a cursed country.

This is not a moment to review what went wrong because everything went wrong after the election to the Constituent Assembly (CA). Nevertheless, a short recap would be helpful. The goal was to fulfil the popular mandate of writing a new constitution and concluding a permanent peace deal with the insurgent Maoist force. The political road that led to the making of the CA was that of consensus among the major political forces, and they should have continued the strategy of unanimity. But this was supplanted by the provision of the majority principle which was a blow to the prospect of making a consensus constitution.

Despite the shift towards the majority principle, the Maoists were in the most enviable position of achieving this goal with the support of more than two-thirds of the members in the CA-cum-parliament. However, their misconceptions and ill adventure against the army leadership led to their premature departure in just nine months. This mishap was followed by the miracle of uniting 22 parties with diverse and contradictory ideologies and goals. This impossible coalition was prolonged for over a year with the single motive of keeping the Maoists out of power.

In both situations described above, the political forces never sat together to settle the differences and find out areas of agreement as per the popular mandate. Different functional committees of the CA could not work in the absence of solutions to the open differences. So, even when it was claimed that 75 percent of the work of writing the constitution had been completed, the major differences regarding the restructuring of the state have been left untouched, and the remaining 25 percent will prove to be more difficult than the completed uncontroversial 75 percent. The other function of concluding a peace deal remains substantially untouched. In the face of this lacuna, the life of the CA was extended by one year out of which more than two months have already been wasted in the dirty wrangling for power.

Given the predicament, what could be the best solution? It has surfaced that the NC and the Maoists cannot see eye to eye, negating the possibility of one accepting the leadership of the other. Thus, even if the NC were supported by the UML and the Tarai group to reach a simple majority, the Maoists will be isolated; and that will be a repetition of the present coalition with only a change of the guard.

Alternatively, if the Maoists get the support of the Tarai group, they will have a simple majority; but in terms of the required strength for getting the constitution passed and enforced, that will make no fundamental difference from the alternate NC-led coalition. Thus, the Maoist leadership is marred with the same predicament as the one with the leadership of the NC, despite being the largest party in parliament. With UML president Jhalanath Khanal pulling out of the race, the present electoral system has no other option. However, the UML has abstained from voting on the ground that it will vote ideally for a consensus system or at least with the condition of a two-thirds majority which is not possible in the given circumstances. What is left has only two possibilities.

The most desirable option is to have a re-shift towards the consensus approach for which the Interim Constitution needs to be amended again with the associated time loss. The amendment process will be lengthy. It will have a limiting impact on the deadline for completing the constitution. With Khanal already having been rejected as a two-thirds majority candidate, it will be impossible to find a consensus candidate for the PM. Despite being an ideal condition, the consensus approach is impracticable at this juncture.

With this option gone, there is one option left that is practicable. Out of the two parties that are in the race, we have discussed the limitation of the NC getting a two-thirds support. But with the support of the UML, which has 109 voters in parliament, and the support of the Tarai groups, the Maoists can get a two-thirds majority. The UML has abstained on the ground that it will not support the simple majority case. If the Tarai votes are assured, it will definitely be a two-thirds majority for the Maoists with UML support. Thus the UML’s vote for the Maoists is the crucial factor to end the deadlock. But everybody will fear that it will be a precarious journey, and the UML will be reluctant to align themselves with the Maoists. Is there a chance of making the Maoist leadership less disastrous?

I argue that the UML can work as a brake on the wild moves of the Maoists. One possible scenario is as follows. The UML will give outside support against some specified conditions. The main condition will, of course, be that the government will have to expedite the two objectives of completing the new constitution and concluding a permanent peace deal so as to finish them by the extended deadline. An equally important limitation will be that the government will engage only in meeting the daily duties and avoid any diversion. A specific clause can be added that if the government wants to take any decision with a long-term effect, it will have to get the consent of the UML, non-observance of which will end UML support automatically.

The UML has once done the honourable work of resigning the leadership of the government which was not functioning. It has done a second honourable task of withdrawing the candidature for the PM even with a good majority on the ground that it was less than the coveted two-thirds. Let it make a hat trick of the good job of staying away from power by providing support from outside. It will have one good chance of washing off the dirt thrown on it that it is a power hungry party.

knsad66@yahoo.com

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