Emergency Justified

THE declaration of the State of Emergency was necessitated by the need of the moment and is directed to bring peace to the country where the Maoists and their sympathisers had been creating havoc and anarchy for the past six years. In this context, Minister for Information and Communications Jaya Prakash Prasad Gupta, speaking in an interview on Dishanirdesh programme broadcast over Nepal Television, the other day, has underlined the point that the main thrust of the declaration of Emergency was to curb terrorism and to maintain peace and security in the country. Minister Gupta was clear on the point that as the nature of the emergency was constitutional there was no question of violating the rights of the civil society. This is a valid statement coming from a senior minister in Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s cabinet. It has been able to tackle very carefully the issue by making it plain that the declaration of emergency was the need of the hour in order to make the life of the people peaceful and rid the country of the violence perpetrated by the terrorists in the garb of Maoism. With all the avenues for finding a peaceful outlet to the Maoist problem having failed and the Maoists themselves attacking and killing security personnel including the army and looting arms and, equipment and other accessories, the government had no other option but to mobilise the army so that the Maoists’ spree for taking others life and property for granted would came to an end. Though he agreed that the State of Emergency was ‘a sign of difficult situation’ for the country, its nature is different than what some people are trying to interpret it as. The State of Emergency has been welcomed by the people as they can now take a sigh of relief after having endured the Maoist threat for so long. In the course of the Maoist violence, hundreds of people including security personnel and innocent citizens have been killed. If it had been a problem of political nature, it could have been resolved through peaceful dialogue but it wasn’t so. The Maoists themselves opted for violence taking advantage of the government’s liberal attitude so it was but natural that for the maintenance of peace and security in the country and to provide the people protection, the government had to act firmly. The State of emergency is no way to curb total freedom of press, but Minister Gupta wanted the media not to highlight or justify the terrorist activities. The positive response that the declaration of the State of Emergency has received countrywide shows that the Nepalese want peace and an end to terrorist activities at all costs.

For Cleaner Elections

A cornerstone of parliamentary democracy that Nepal is since 1990, is elections that send people’s representatives to the parliament periodically. With Nepal having seen a number of general elections and local elections in the past, it is natural that we are now in a position to evaluate the election processes and determine their weaknesses and strengths. Successful conduct of these elections has pointed out to the fact that election processes as we are practising have generally served the purpose. But at the same time it has also been well-recognised that there is a need for electoral reforms in order to strengthen these processes. Electoral reforms was the topic of a discussion programme on Monday where various speakers called for a range of steps that are necessary if elections are to contribute to cleaner politics. Indeed, one of the persistent views in favour of introducing electoral reforms relates to the need for minimising the influence of money in elections, a point Speaker Taranath Ranabhat stressed while addressing the programme. It is plain that money plays an unduly big role in electioneering. While any candidate contesting in elections would want to press into service as much resources as possible at his/her command, the over-dependence on money subverts the election process putting those without filthy riches at a clear disadvantage.

The influence of money in elections is not unique to Nepal, of course. Advanced democracies as well as emerging democracies around the world suffer from it. But Nepal has not really started to combat this influence. The battle to bring about clean politics must start with increased emphasis on transparency of political parties’ transactions. Though the clamour for putting in a mechanism that strictly monitors the income and expenditure records of political parties have been more and more strident, such a mechanism has not yet taken shape. In fact, it is fair to say that various clauses in the Election Code of Conduct, brought in four years ago, are not in practice yet, though independent observers have rightly credited the implementation of that Code for making the last general elections cleaner than the past. This goes to prove that with stricter enforcement mechanism the Code can make a difference to make the elections cleaner. But without addressing the issue of transparency in political parties’ transactions, implementation of the Code will not be easy and cleaner politics, which hinges on cleaner elections, will not materialise.