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Kathmandu Friday April 06, 2001 Chaitra 24, 2057.
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Recycled
ordinance
The ruling Nepali Congress party, which never
seems to be able to compose its internal differences while in power, has now apparently
decided to terminate the ongoing session of parliament, a session that has been the least
productive in the relatively short history of Nepalese democracy. The agreement came after
a flurry of meetings the other day between the prime minister and Krishna Prasad Bhattarai
at the latter’s Bhainsepati residence and among senior party leaders at the residence
of another former prime minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba. Although the meetings could not make
any progress over the vexed question of Girija Prasad Koirala’s resignation, they did
project a semblance of unity. And there is nothing wrong with calling a halt to a
parliamentary session when it is not getting anywhere. It’s perfectly democratic and
well within the prerogative of the ruling party. Parliamentary sessions have been
terminated and parliament itself dissolved for less solid reasons. If the opposition
parties are hell bent on making a mockery of parliamentary democracy by bringing street
level tactics into the halls of parliament for a month and more, there is little point in
pretending that parliament is still functioning. However, intransigence on the part of the
opposition over demands for Koirala’s resignation has been matched every bit of the
way by Koirala’s own olympian disdain for the whole chorus of resignation calls. This
obstinacy is now about to exact
a price in a manner not widely foreseen.
Stuck with an escalating Maoist guerrilla war
that has just claimed the lives of 35 security personnel over one weekend and an armed
police force ordinance which it cannot get through parliament because of the latter’s
non-functioning, the Nepali Congress government has decided to keep the ordinance and the
armed police force alive through a re-promulgation as soon as the current house session
ends. This is a mockery of both parliament and democracy. People will naturally wonder
what kind of democracy we have when parliament, its most supreme manifestation, has to be
shunted aside just to get something important done. True, not everybody agrees on the need
for an armed police force in view of the possibility of dialogue with the Maoists. But
that is a different debate altogether. The question here is one of the continued relevance
of parliament if parliament has to be gotten out of the way to enable an ordinance to be
re-promulgated and recycled. It was in similar fashion that this ordinance along with
another one on regional governors was brought in just days before the current winter
session was to convene.
This is crass cynicism. Surely the people of
Nepal who voted parliament into existence deserve better than that. Koirala and company
should come out of the rut into which they have fallen and put the interests of the party
above their own and that of the nation above those of the party. Koirala might be
technically right in arguing that if he is to be forced out of office, it should be done
constitutionally. But this is not the time to get bogged down in technical niceties. Far
more important considerations are at stake.
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