Editorial»
Trust but verify
JAN 12 - Political party leaders are called one-by-one for an audience in the Royal Palace. The exercise is undertaken to install a new government which can bring the agitating political parties under its fold, negotiate peace with the Maoists, and hold elections to a new parliament. The King asks the politicians to form a consensus, ostensibly to propose a new candidate for Prime Minister.
Sounds like the present times, doesn’t it? But no, the said exercise by the Palace was held in late May and early June 2003 before it ignored almost all advise and hand-picked Surya Bahadur Thapa to lead a new government. Seven months later - with the country sliding further into ruins with escalating Maoist violence, ill-thought out militarisation programmes, and cries for republicanism ringing out on the streets of Kathmandu - a similar exercise is being carried out.
The Palace is again calling politicians one by one and asking them to forge a consensus based on a seven-point agenda. And, as in last June, there is intense speculation that the monarch is now leaning towards picking the parties’ choice of UML general secretary Madhav Nepal as the new Prime Minister.
No one, except King Gyanendra, knows whether the speculation turns out to be true in the end. Besides, that is not the point of this article either. Though whether the Thapa government stays or goes, and who replaces him if he goes, is of paramount importance to the future of Nepal, what we are concerned here is not with the similarities with last June but with the differences between now and then.
Back then, the speculation rode on hopes that the King would do the needful and bring the political parties into an alliance which could then deal with the Maoists. Those hopes were essentially realistic because the Palace had already once tried, and failed, to usher in political stability when it ignored the parties by picking Lokendra Bahadur Chand in October 2002 to run the country.
From October 2002 to June 2003, the Palace had had ample time to ruminate on its decisions and make the necessary corrections when the opportunity arose. That opportunity arrived with the abrupt resignation of Chand in late May 2003, followed by the unanimous choice of Mr Nepal by the five major agitating political parties. But it didn’t turn out that way.
Instead of making peace with the major parties and getting them on-board a broad-based government, the Palace further antagonized them by picking Thapa on the disputed grounds that there wasn’t a consensus candidate. That action shattered whatever little trust there was between the Palace and the parties.
Now fast forward to the present. Yes, there is speculation again that the King will choose Madhav Nepal, still the parties’ choice, to form a new government. But that is the only similarity with last year.
If you read the newspapers, hear the politicians and listen to the man on the street, either in the cities or the villages, you will notice that along with the speculation, there is also considerable mistrust of Palace intentions. While everyone may speculate about the chances of Mr Nepal becoming the new Prime Minister, very few believe that the King will actually do accordingly. Even Mr Nepal himself doesn’t believe it. And this is the difference between now and then.
The reason is simple: The King is being judged on the basis of his past actions. This is why there is so much mistrust of his intentions. It is unfortunate that this feeling of mistrust against the Palace permeates not just the political parties, but also the common citizenry. The parties may be corrupt, inept and undemocratic in their structure, but to the common man on the street, it is still the parties which represent them. The Palace doesn’t represent them, and neither does its hand-picked royal government nor its human rights-abusing security services.
Now could this cloud of mistrust be lifted if the King were to call Mr Nepal to form an all-party government? Yes, but only up to an extent because trust can only be built over time and then only through verifiable actions rather than mere promises. While an all-party government led by Mr Nepal would be a new beginning - a chance, if you will, to help begin resolving the many problems Nepal faces today - it will be no more than the first step towards the goal of building mutual trust.
The parties would be wise to allow the Palace some room for maneuver lest it be pushed into a corner, and therefore into a more hard-line position. But the onus for trust-building and reconciliation clearly lies with the Palace. It must take a series of verifiable steps to build confidence with the people and their parties. It could begin by jettisoning its seven-point agenda given recently to political leaders which are nothing but an attempt at keeping its privilege of interfering with democracy. The Palace can then ask Thapa to step aside in favour of the five-parties, and then progressively distance itself from running the country. If constitutional monarchy is to survive in this country, there is no other way.
(The writer can be reached at suman66@hotmail.com)Posted on: 2004-01-13 04:08
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