FEATURES NEWS THE RISING NEPAL (DAILY)

Forging Consensus & Compromise
Ball In The Parties' Court

By Yuba Nath Lamsal

THE long awaited cabinet expansion has now been complete. His Majesty the King, on the advice of Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand, inducted eight Ministers and five Assistant Ministers in the Council of Ministers formed on October 11, 2002. Now the strength of the cabinet is 22.

Combination

There is a good combination in the formation of the Council of Ministers. The members of cabinet, although most of them are new faces, have a clean image and long experience in their respective fields. It looks more like a team of professionals.

Nepal is currently in crisis both politically and economically. Political crisis emerged due to incompetence, vested interest and near-sight of politicians who assumed responsibility to rule and govern the country for the last 12 years since multi-party democracy was restored in 1990. Nepal witnessed a record political instability with frequent changes of governments. In the last 12 years, 12 different governments came to power and fell.

There are mixed reactions about the structure of the present cabinet. While many describe it as a representative cabinet of all sections, communities, and professions, major political parties namely CPN-UML and the Nepali Congress claim that the "cabinet of technocrats" cannot solve the country's burning political problem.

However, the problem did not come up overnight. Political parties themselves are responsible for this. If the problem was nipped in the bud, the situation would not have been as dreadful as it is today.
After the 1990 political change, Nepalese people had high expectations from the governments and political parties. However, the euphoria was short-lived. The parties talked loud about democracy, poverty eradication and creation of employment. In action, they did very little to address the fundamental problems like poverty, unemployment, economic backwardness.

The bitter power struggle among politicians and parties and rampant corruption dashed the hopes of the people. These hopes and faith turned into depression and frustration. Some elements that were seeking to destablise Nepal took advantage out of people's frustration and disenchantment. The Maoist problem is the product of this situation.

Political and constitutional crisis emerged when caretaker Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba backed by all major political parties announced that the government was unable to hold the general elections in the stipulated time due to poor security and recommended for the postponement of the elections for one year.

The reason behind this was the Maoist violence. The violence has already taken more than 5,000 lives and also severely affected Nepal's economy. This situation has demanded unity and cooperation among all the political forces to solve the present crisis. However, the political parties are making mistakes one after another. Now let us take some examples.

His Majesty the King dissolved the House of Representatives six months ago and announced the date for the general elections on the recommendation of then Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. However, the caretaker Prime Minister failed to fulfil this responsibility and instead started making unconstitutional and undemocratic decisions. The recommendation to postpone the election for one year is a violation of the constitution, while dissolving elected local bodies was undemocratic. All parliamentary parties supported these unconstitutional and undemocratic decisions of the government.

The King refused to abide by Deuba's unconstitutional recommendation and dismissed the caretaker Prime Minister citing the reason of incompetence in fulfilling its assigned duty in time. His Majesty, then, asked all the political parties to come up with the unanimous name for the post of Prime Minister. Parties failed to do so within the stipulated time that cleared the way for His Majesty to appoint Lokendra Bahadur Chand as the new Prime Minister of the Kingdom. Chand is a liberal, gentle and polite person who wants to go ahead with consensus and compromise. There had been reportedly a tacit but informal agreement among the political parties on Chand's name for premiership.
However, parties changed their voice after the formation of the Chand cabinet especially from the CPN-UML and the Nepali Congress. Jhala Nath Khanal, central leader of CPN-UML, said " We have objection and reservation towards both procedures as well as leadership of the government", and while Arjun Nar Singh KC of the Nepali Congress echoed Khanal's voice.

Despite marathon efforts of Prime Minister Chand for more than a month to go ahead collectively, the Nepali Congress and CPN-UML refused to join the government. This is one of the reasons for the delay in the expansion of the cabinet.

Leaders and parties are also partly responsible for the present situation. Firstly they failed give a common name for the Prime Minister in the new context. Secondly, they refused to participate in the cabinet. Some leaders are even repeating their irresponsible and obsolete demands like reinstatement of the dissolved House of Representatives and reinstatement of the dismissed caretaker Prime Minister. These are all impossible legally, constitutionally and practically.

What has been done is good. There was no alternative with the King other than to dismiss Deuba from the post of the Prime Minister. Now the new cabinet has been formed with the seasoned politicians, experts and professionals with clean image, the government needs to kick start to solve country's burning problems and meet the expectations of the people.

Crux of problems

The crux of all problems like poor security, economic downturn and political instability is the Maoist violence. Unless Maoist problem is solved and peace is restored, the country cannot make progress in other fronts. The government has also set its priority of maintaining law and order by resolving the Maoist issue and holding general as well as local elections. But these national issues and problems cannot be solved without the cooperation from all sectors. We must understand that conflict and confrontation cannot lead the country towards the path of progress. Consensus and compromise are the best ways to solve national issues and problems. The government has kept its doors open for dialogue, discussion and cooperation for the task of nation building. Thus, parties need to bury their previous differences and collectively engage in rescuing the nation from political chaos. For this, the ball is now in the court of the political forces.

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