Games Politicians Play

The month of May 2003 ended with the resignation of the eight-month old Council of Ministers headed by Lokendra Bahadur Chand. When this page was going to the press, the new government was still not formed. The king gave the political parties 72 hours to develop a consensus as to who should be the Prime Minister. Most likely, the parties will select Madhav Kumar Nepal, the CPN-UML supremo.

The development comes during the third stage of the movement (also called Janaandolan-II) that the political parties have been waging against the move of the King that ousted popularly elected Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba replacing him by Chand, who  had forfeited his deposits from both of the constituencies he fought in the last general elections.

Under the third stage of the movement, the parties held the session of the dissolved lower house of parliament and the local bodies (District Development Committees-DDCs and Village Development Committees-VDCs) and  were going to announce a parallel government. Chand’s Party RPP and his Deputy Prime Minister Badri Prasad Mandal’s Party Sadbhavana as well as Deuba's  Nepali Congress (Democratic) did not participate in the session and speaker of the dissolved House of Representatives Taranath Rana Bhat (who belongs to Nepali Congress) refused to chair the session.

The session also indicated the likelihood of Nepali Congress getting united after nearly one year-old split. Though no concrete developments have been reported for the two factions getting united, Khum Bhadadur Khadka, the General secretary of the splinter group Nepali Congress (Democratic) led by Deuba, has resigned from the Deuba party and is expected to join the parent organization. Similar additional defections are expected to take place soon.

Very few people may believe it to be simple coincidence that while the government and the Maoist representative were sitting for the peace talks, the political parties formally began their agitation against, what they call as, the regressive move of the king with which he ousted the popularly elected government early October last year.

Meanwhile, the anti-corruption body of the country known as CIAA has initiated actions against the major leaders of the political parties that involved in the agitation.

Also interesting was the 'uproar of the month’ about the government-Maoist understanding to limit the movement of the army within four kilometers of the barracks, thus conceding the Maoist army the effective control across the country.

Another important development of the month was the premature termination of the tenure of the seven mobile teams formed about six months ago to monitor the delivery of government services. Also referred to as the Daudaha (or mobile) teams, these were being severely criticized for their highhandedness in a number of instances, thus reflecting badly on the government. 

Another ‘uproar of the month’ was the reaction over Nepal’s assurance to Bhutan during the recently held talks under which, as it is reported, Nepal has agreed that those Bhutanese refugees who do not want to go back to Bhutan will be allowed to apply for Nepali citizenship.