FEATURES NEWS THE RISING NEPAL (DAILY)

Consolidating Democracy Political Parties Vital

By Khilendra Basnyat

DEMOCRACY is a competitive political system in which different political parties and individuals work in concert for the welfare of the country and the people. It includes full and free communication, consensus rather than coercion to settle any dispute and recognition of competence rather than the domination of a person or prerogative of power.

Struggle

Today, democratic government is considered the best system of administration. For this reason, many countries are adopting this form of government and many more are trying to adopt it. In Nepal, after a long struggle and many sacrifices, people brought democracy in 1951 and restored it in 1990. Actually, democracy not only provides freedom of speech but also the right to assemblies and organisations to the people.

After the restoration of democracy, the hopes and dreams of the people rose. They thought that democracy would bring progress and welfare in the country. However, the last twelve years have seen a decline in the euphoria that had arisen in 1990. In our country, politics has been treated like an ordinary earning profession for life's comfort. The growing trend of the political party in power to become an elected dictator after completing the formality of elections, is becoming a perilous phenomenon.

After the re-advent of democracy, political parties perhaps thought that democracy in itself would work as a machine without knowing how to use it. However, this is not possible in real life. In the past twelve years, politicians of different political parties made tall promises but could not fulfil them mostly. Hence, it is natural that the people have lost faith in most politicians.

In fact, parliamentarians could play a significant role in gearing politics towards development activities. However in the past, various kinds of harmful activities were rampant among parliamentarians. Horse trading, misuse of development passports, enforcement of bills to increase salary and perks of law - makers vis-a-vis avoidance of customs of cars and misuse of development budget were some of the anomalies worth noting.

No doubt, being a parliamentarian makes one privileged. However this does not give one the right to do anything that pleased oneself. This was a major question in the past twelve years. In reality, parliamentarians should comprehend well that the parliament is the place where people's representatives try to meet people's aspirations and find solutions to the problems that face the nation. The ultimate idea is to work for laws that aim at development and better quality of life for the people.In Nepal, politics has become totally amoral and inspired by the lust for power. This shortcoming cannot be blamed on the constitution. Its source has to be sought in ruling classes that have been expropriating the labour of the people, denying their rights as enshrined in the constitution. This has led to increasing people's sufferings from the leaders of the political parties from their own constituencies.Each political party in our country seemed to have developed its own vested interest and none of them was prepared to disclose its identity for the national interest in preference to its own self-interest. What is lacking is a sense of patriotism. Those in power behaved as rulers and not as people's representatives. The craze for power has caused an unfair impact on the country and the people.Since the past twelve years, there has been serious deterioration in the political situation in our country. In the past, the ruling party encouraged defection from the opposition parties through the misuse of power of patronage in order to remain power. The standard of morality has fallen quite low. This is testified by the fact that since the past twelve years political corruption has become chronic in our country. Time and again, corrupt leaders have been calling themselves as a pillar of democracy and preaching institutionalisation of democratic structures. However, there is no denying that political corruption is the root cause of evils in our society. It has shattered the tattered economy of our country.

Even after the restoration of democracy, our politicians lack vision and thoughts of their own. Politics of pragmatism guide them. They think and work as they would in the past. The decision and policy making hardly reflect any new idea nor do they show any receptive attitude. Apart from this, active youthful energy is lacking in our politics.

In democracy, public opinions should be heard, and translated into reality. However in our country, public opinions happen to be weak, the media of its formation as well as expression undeveloped and far from independent. Under these conditions, the politics of competition is proving to be unable to solve the problems facing the nation. Actually, power politics is aggravating and complicating many problems and in some cases hindering or showing down their solution.

In well-established democracy, the number of political parties should be small. There should be stability and discipline in such parties. Also, public opinion should be powerful and effective.
In our country, the picture in all these respects is depressing. For example, there are many political parties, party discipline is weak, causing splits and factions. Political morality is resulting in personal interest, superseding public interest.

In an underdeveloped country like ours, politics plays a disproportionately dominant role. Although much depends on politics it is the political situation, the juxtaposition of two sharply contrasted situations, which is causing anxiety.On the one side, our country's problems are found to be vast and numerous, on the other side, existing political institutions and processes are tending increasingly to promote disunity rather than unity, disruption rather than consolidation, negligence rather than devotion and parochialism rather than priority.In fact, the establishment of a working democracy in Nepal requires responsible as well as committed individual to be engaged in its infrastructure design and implementation. For this purpose, these individuals should have theoretical knowledge about democracy. It is because they assess how the educational process of democracy for ordinary people will be discriminated.

In democracy, the participation of all sections of the community in decision-making is important in order to ensure equal access for all the available resources. However, the historical representation of the weak sections of the people in decision making is inextricably linked with their inferior status in the society.Actually, democracy is not meant for a particular section of the people or for the people from a specified region. The greatness of democracy lies in accommodating the opinions of the minority.If democracy has any meaning, if every individual is to have to opportunity to exercise it, then it is essential to pool together the strength of the deprived as a collective force for generating wealth. Actually, this capital is superior in its wealth producing capacity than that collected by any individuals by exploiting human labour.

VitalIn reality, political parties are the vital elements for the consolidation of democracy. Hence, they need to find out about what they achieved in the last twelve years and where exactly they failed to translate their pledges into a fact of life.

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