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To
submit your views and opinion RPP
and the Renewal of Democracy in Nepal -By Kailali The recently concluded
Third General Convention of the Rastra Prajatantra Party (RPP) in Pokhara
brought a welcome breath of freshness into the stale and depressing air of
politics in Nepal. The election of Pasupati Shumsher Rana as the Party
Chairman is welcome on several counts. That veteran politician Surya Bahadur
Thapa was required to withdraw per party rules, after two terms as Chairman,
gives a healthy air of openness and turnover to Nepali politics, which has
had more than its share of perpetual leadership and its related evils of
stagnation, nepotism, cronyism and infighting. Rana’s election as the
Chairman of the RPP represents a shift in leadership to a “younger
generation”. That Pasupati Rana, at age 60, is a younger generation
leader, indicates how necessary it is to begin a greening of the leadership
in Nepali party politics. There were some other
encouraging signs in Rana’s election. This is the kind of caliber of
leadership that Nepal needs, and there are others like him spread across the
various parties. Rana graduated from Oxford University in 1963 with a BA in
politics, philosophy and economics (PPE). He has since held distinguished
posts in academia ( Executive Director of the Centre for Economic
Development and Administration or CEDA ), government (he had Cabinet
portfolios in several governments), and party politics (he was till recently
the General Secretary of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party or RPP). Rana has
fought and won elections to the legislature under both the Panchayat
dispensation, as well as the parliamentary democracy that followed in 1990. It was also encouraging
that both of Rana’s major rivals for the party leadership also had solid
credentials; Prakash Chandra Lohani is a Ph.D in Economics from the
University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) and also has a wealth of
experience in government and politics; and Rabindra Nath Sharma also has
impressive credentials as a second generation leader. The other parties
should also shift to such younger and well-rounded leaders from within their
own ranks. There were many who noted
and appreciated the transparent manner in which the RPP changed its leader
at the Third General Convention in Pokhara. The three principal contenders
fought on their merits rather than on anything more negative. Older
generation leaders like Surya Bahadur Thapa were listened to politely at the
general convention (the electoral body), whose members knew what they wanted
and were more than capable of making up their own minds. They did so clearly
and decisively (Rana won by a landslide); but the fact that most analysts
had thought the results too close to call till the final voting showed how
open the race was. Compare this with the immensely more bitter General
Convention of the (then ruling) Nepali Congress Party some two years ago,
when a septuagenarian and solidly entrenched leader with a unshakeable grip
on his party machine (Girija Prasad Koirala) had effectively beaten his
younger and second generation rival (Sher Bahadur Deuba) well before the
actual proceedings. The resulting acrimony spilled over into government and
parliament, resulting in quick succession in the fall of Koirala as Prime
Minister due to lack of party support; his replacement by his party nemesis
Deuba; the premature dissolution of the House of Representatives by Deuba to
avoid a vote of no confidence that might have been engineered by Koirala in
alliance with the CPN-UML (led by Madhav Kumar Nepal) and the RPP (led by
Surya Bahadur Thapa); and finally the dismissal of the election-shy Deuba
himself as Prime Minister following the no-parliament and no-elections
muddle his government and the opposing parties had got themselves into. In
terms of leadership selection and turnover, it is interesting to note that
the Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) is still
debating the merits of term limits and direct elections to a post of party
president. It seems some veteran leaders see such a direct and open
procedure as being conducive to “autocracy”. Rana’s stated intention
of giving priority to making the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) a “lean
and mean election fighting machine” is also encouraging for the renewal of
democracy in Nepal. His emphasis on winning power through elections is what
democracy is about, as opposed to the politics of the “kursi” (chair),
and the making and breaking of coalitions and governments, that seemed to be
favored by more veteran politicians. through such devices as their so-called
“broad democratic alliance”. A party that is unwilling to fight
and win elections, should turn itself into a charitable NGO, or into one of
the numerous for a for hothouse political discourse that thrive in our urban
landscape, challenge our intellectual perspective, and give the hyperactive
Press so very much to report about so very little. It is through elections
that a political party tests its relevance, and establishes its democratic
credentials and legitimacy to govern. Democracy is not about government of
the parties, for the parties, by the parties. It is about government
of the people, for the people, by the people. General elections are the
vital link in all of this. It was quite an aberration
when then Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba went to the King as a
constitutional monarch last October 2002 to say that he was unable to hold
elections within the six month period (from dissolution of parliament) that
was required under Article 53.4 of the Constitution. The damage to the
Constitution went even further when, after consultations with and apparent
encouragement from the major parties, Deuba requested that elections be
postponed by a further 14 months (20 months beyond the dissolution of the
House of Representatives in May 2002)! Also remarkable in a parliamentary
democracy were the statements by political leaders that elections were only
possible, and they would only fight them, if the Maoist insurgents (declared
terrorists by the Government) would permit them to be held! In a
parliamentary democracy this was tantamount to handing over the country and
its democracy to the Maoists. Hopefully the RPP led by Rana will give
parliamentary and local government elections the primacy they deserve,
irrespective of speculation on whether the Maoists will permit them or not,
and irrespective of the seemingly election-shy and ‘kursi” oriented
politics of the more veteran politicians. It is time to go to the people
with the blessings of the King. In this respect Rana and
the RPP are correct in avoiding the politics of confrontation with the King.
The political parties fool no one when they try to blame the King for the
repeated and sustained mess that they have made of the mandate of the people
over the last twelve years since the changeover to parliamentary democracy
in 1990. It would augur well for democracy if the parties would devote to
their own self-examination and self-improvement at least some of the
time and energy that they are spending on their politics of blame (anyone
but themselves) and street demonstrations, and civil and economic disruption
such as “bandhs” and “hartals” (as well as the disruption of
parliament itself by an amazing 57 days in 2002)! The parties should give
serious thought to two injunctions of the ancient philosophers and prophets:
“Know Thyself!” and “Let he who is innocent cast the first stone!”.
Or, as the moderns would say: “Physician, heal thyself!”. The 4 October
2002 dismissal of the election-shy Deuba government, and appointment of an
interim government pending general elections, gives to the political parties
time off to reflect, reform, regroup, reorganize, and reinvigorate
themselves for parliamentary elections that they should fight sooner rather
than later (with or without the Maoists, or more veteran leaders and
their ‘kursi” oriented politics). Rana and the RPP are correct in taking
the positive route of general elections within the framework of
parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy. The RPP is correct to say
that in times of crisis the King as a constitutional monarch should play a
more influential role in Nepali politics. In times of crisis, yes! It is
common sense. In times of crisis, when the Prime Minister dissolves
parliament but will not hold elections within the period stipulated by the
Constitution, and when the major parties are aiding and abetting him in this
very unconstitutional stance, then surely the King as constitutional
monarch, King-in-Parliament, and Head of State, must play a more effective
and corrective role within the context of parliamentary democracy and
constitutional monarchy. If not the King, then who? India? The pseudo
liberal moneybags of the European Union? Or is it to be the Maoist
insurgents, with their ideological preference for a Soviet-style People’s
Republic, dominated by a monopolistic Communist Party, controlled by a
self-selecting Politburo, all of this dictated by a Supremo or Secretaty
General? The King did the correct,
proper, constitutional, and inevitable thing in dismissing the election-shy
government of then Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba on 4 October 2002.
Sovereignty does not lie in the parties. It lies in the people. When Deuba
dissolved the parliament, and then colluded with other political parties to
postpone elections well beyond the period stipulated by the Constitution,
then he and his government lost their legitimacy vis-a-vis both parliament
and the Constitution; and the parties who supported him lost their political
and moral credibility. In doing this the parties did hurt to the sovereignty
of the people. In a parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarchy
the sovereignty of the people is reflected in the King, and is expressed
through parliament based upon periodic, and open, and free and fair
elections. In times of crisis like these, when politicians collude to
dissolve parliament and then delay parliamentary elections beyond the
periods stipulated by the Constitution, it is for the King as constitutional
monarch to put things back on track through timely, and free and fair
elections. The government appointed by the King for this purpose is
absolutely legitimate. Its legitimacy will lie in the efficiency with which
it moves to restore parliament through general elections, and to give
further expression to popular sovereignty through elections to local
government bodies. Given Maoist insurgency, the elections may not be very
comfortable. But democracy is not about comfort. It is about principle! It is also in the interests
of the renewal of democracy in Nepal that Rana work with his colleagues in
developing a clear persona for the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP).
Democracy thrives on choice, and choice requires that the RPP indicate
clearly what they are about, and what it is they offer that will be
different from that which the Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML have been
offering. In the past few years the RPP, that some had thought to be
nationalist and royalist, had shown no powerful signs of either
characteristic. Its rationale had seemed to be that government was better
than opposition, and that its best chance to acquire power was through
(shaky and unconvincing) coalitions of parties rather than by winning a
majority via the electoral process. Thus the RPP had seemed to join
the Nepali Congress and CPN-UML in the political fiction of the so-called
“broad democratic alliance”, with the seeming agenda of gaining
participation in a coalition government by demoralizing and destabilizing
the then government of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. Rana and his
younger generation colleagues need to take the RPP in a more positive,
democratic, and election winning direction. While developing their
persona they would do well to revisit their roots as the party of
nationalism and (constitutional) monarchy. They could take their track
record in developing the comprehensive system of local government further
into the realm of political devolution (local self- government). They could
establish themselves as the party of lower taxes and less intrusive
government; as the party of well regulated but free enterprise in a market
economy; as the party of civil liberties backed by social and cultural
safety nets; as the party that realizes that the primary poverty in Nepal is
the poverty of the Nepali spirit and its crippling effects on Nepalis as
individuals and communities; and last but not least as a party that promises
competent and transparent administration and good governance. It will be
good for the renewal of democracy in Nepal if the RPP can give to the people
one more clear and viable choice besides that provided by the Nepali
Congress, CPN-UML, or the far left parties. The political parties must
stop their confrontation with the King. The people are sovereign; they have
always been sovereign. Their sovereignty is well reflected in the King as
the constitutional monarch. The political parties must perform better
in their function of giving practical expression to the sovereignty of the
people through parliaments elected through periodic and timely, and free and
fair elections. The parties must go again to the people with the blessing of
the King. That is the path of parliamentary democracy and constitutional
monarchy. That is what Nepal needs! To
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