The Indispensability Of Political Parties In Managing Local Bodies
By KRISHNA MAN PRADHAN
The need of the local bodies arises in order to identify the daily problems of the people living in villages and cities and delivering immediate service as per their demand. For the fulfillment of these very issues, Village Development Committees (VDCs), District Development Committees (DDCs) and municipalities were formed as local bodies in Nepal.
For a multi-lingual, multi-regional and multi-ethnic country like Nepal, it is simply impossible for the central government to carry out all activities. Therefore, it is imperative to ensure effective operation of local bodies and equip them with adequate resources so that they can identify and resolve people’s problems and, ultimately, uplift their standards of living. If this system can be adopted by way of decentralization, the vision of good governance can be realized and democracy, too, can be institutionally developed. There is no alternative but to allow the local bodies to carry out activities at the local level in a country like Nepal where many people live in geographically difficult terrain and where rural people occupy larger share of the population. In order to realize these objectives the Constitution of 1990 and Local Self Governance Act 1999 were promulgated. Likewise, effective machinery has been provisioned and duties, responsibilities and resources provided in order to make the local government units able and efficient.
After the restoration of democracy, two local elections were held in the country – in 1993 and 1998. In the first elections, around 200,000 representatives were elected and they successfully carried out their tenure. In the second election, around 40,000 women representatives – including the mandatory 20 percent in wards and 10 percent in VDCs – were elected. However, due to political instability and vested interests, these achievements ended up becoming meaningless. The existing Act envisages the local governments as permanent governments. Underlining this vision, the Article 239 of the Act states that the Nepal government can extend their tenure by one year or conduct it through other means in case its regular election cannot be held owing to natural disaster, economic problems or special circumstances. However, in 2002 July, instead of extending their tenure by one year, then Deuba-government decided to hand over the management of local bodies to bureaucrats. Consequently, local bodies, which are regarded as foundations of democracy, were rendered devoid of elected representatives. And these bodies failed to work for the local people.
Since the 1990 Constitution was not able to incorporate the emotions and desires of entire people, a rebellion emerged within the country. And there was the People’s Movement II, which resulted in the reinstatement of House of Representatives (which was elected in 1999). The restored House has declared itself sovereign and the central government was formed by the leading political parties. The government and the Maoists have declared ceasefire and entered into formal negotiations. The House has declared the elections for Constituent Assembly, as demanded by People’s Movement II, and an interim statute drafting committee, too, has been formed.
In this backdrop, the Association of DDCs, Nepal (ADDCN), National Association of VDCs in Nepal (NAVIN), Municipal Association of Nepal (MuAN) as well as political parties such as Nepal Workers and Peasants Party (NWPP) and Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist), have demanded that the local bodies, too, be restored just like the parliament. However, after Maoist chairman Prachanda warned that the restoration of local bodies could result in derailment of peace process, this issue has been pushed to the back-burner.
On the side of the state, the democratic government has handed over the local bodies to the bureaucrats and has given them the authority of Village Council, Municipal Council and District Council. On the side of the Maoists, they have also formed their village-level and district-level governments. Consequently, the common people are in a state of confusion as two parallel governments are in operation at local level. Perhaps, to address this issue, the recent eight-point agreement between the Maoists and the seven political parties talks about dissolving the House of Representatives as well as Maoists’ people’s governments.
As a result, the government has the only option of forming all party committees including the participation of seven parties and Maoists at VDC, municipality and DDC level to carry out interim arrangement till new elections can be held. The local bodies can be operated at two levels – the bureaucrats can be mobilized for administration and implementation of decisions made by executive committee whereas executive committees should be formed for plan formulation, selection, decision-making and monitoring. In the interest of social justice, such executive committees should have the following composition – civil society representation (20 percent), seven political parties (60 percent) and Maoists (20 percent).
Such executive committees may have 25 members at district level, 11 members at VDC level and in municipalities one member each may be selected from each ward. When selecting the 60 percent candidates from seven parties, those who were elected in the past should be inducted. Likewise, those working in people’s government may be selected from Maoist quota. When choosing representatives from civil society, at the village and city level people from Users’ Group, Mother’s Group, local NGOs, Clubs, Dalit association should be selected and, at the district level, people from NAVIN, ADDCN, MuAN, District Bar Unit, District Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Women Development Office and Forest Community Users’ Federation should be selected.
If working committees can be formed as mentioned above, all the state services can be delivered to people in villages and cities. And the development construction activities that had remained suspended since past ten years would resume and can be completed within two years minimum. Handing over the judicial authorities as per Article 33 and 101 of LSGA and publication of this decision in the National Gazette would help formalize the ongoing judicial activities at the local bodies’ level. And this will result in the appropriateness of the appointment of Rajendra Pandey as the Local Development Minister since he has been working for the last 15 years for the autonomy and judicial empowerment of local bodies. If these committees are mobilized to spread the news and communicate about the election of Constituent Assembly that could educate 26 million people of this country and enable them to properly use their voting rights. And if donors, too, indeed wish to consolidate democracy and expedite development in Nepal, they should channel their fund and use them through these committees.
(Pradhan is President of Rural Development Foundation. He can be contacted at kmprdf@mail.com.np)
