|
|||
|
|
|||
|
COVER STORY |
NEPAL As the government fails to
make its presence felt, almost every sphere of public life is affected. A rebel group
tries to cash in on the widespread frustration as the ruling party is engaged in a fight
for power ignoring prominent problems in the country. Is this because of the failure
of leadership or governance? The time has come to examine. By BHAGIRATH YOGI "South Asia is facing a crisis of
governance which, if left unchecked, could undermine the region's democratic progress, and
the economic and social well-being of its teeming masses. Home to nearly one-fourth of
humanity, the region is characterized by governments that represent the poor but aid the
rich; taxation that is insufficient and regressive; and expenditures that are misdirected
and ineffective. In addition, millions of dollars are transferred out of the region every
year through corruption. South Asia today features societies that assert the rights of
some but perpetuate the exclusion of others." - Human Development in South Asia Report
1999, published by the Islamabad-based Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Center
--- Nearly 40,000 schools all over
the country remain closed since last week at the call of the pro-Maoist student
organization. But teachers say they have granted leave to the students as preparation for
the exams. --- Hotel workers agree to postpone their
shutdown strike hours before their deadline expires. But hoteliers decide to close their
hotels evicting their guests. --- Technical staff at the government-run
hospitals in the capital valley continue their strike despite a government's ban. They
withdraw it later half-heartedly. "That government is the best which
governs least," say post-modern text books. It might be more than true in the case of
Nepal. Whether schools, hospitals or hotels, everything seems to be in a mess. "Do we
have a government?" asked Mandira Shrestha, a housewife queuing for a cylinder of
cooking gas at Anamnagar, who had sent her son to fetch a kilo of sugar from the market. Barely one and half years after returning
the Nepali Congress to power with a thumping majority, people across the country have
started asking questions. Already suffering from poverty, unemployment and injustice, they
are now forced to live under the shadow of terror. Even some former ministers and
top-notch businessmen in the capital are buying protection by paying monthly ëdonations'
to the Maoist rebels, sources say. Reports allege that the rebels first extorted money
from the flourishing private schools and later asked them to close down when it was time
for them to show their influence. The presence of the government has
virtually shrunk to the district headquarters in remote western hills where Maoists have
their strongholds. They run a parallel administration. People visit them rather than the
courts to get their complaints heard. Development works have come to standstill. Sometimes
common people find themselves in the crossfire. While rebels force them to provide
shelter, police punish them, sometimes burning their houses, as was the case at Khara in
Rukum district. With more than 1500 people having lost
their lives, according to official counts, over the last five years in the Maoist-launched
ëpeople's war, senseless killings, abduction and violence seem to have become the
rule rather than exception in this peace-loving country. Is Nepal heading toward the
fate of Sri Lanka? Officials don't agree. "How can
a group of irresponsible youths close down all the schools? The school operators
themselves don't want to open their schools," said Deputy Prime Minister and Home
Minister Ram Chandra Poudel. "The government is committed to providing security to
all." His own party colleagues don't believe such
statements. "Koirala has failed to fulfill the promises he made while
dislodging the Bhattarai government early this year," NC lawmaker Rajendra Kharel
said in a statement early this week. Infighting within the NC A day after returning from India, senior
Nepali Congress leader and former prime minister K. P. Bhattarai asked Prime Minister G.
P. Koirala on Monday to vacate one of the two posts that he currently holds. Koirala is
also the president of the ruling Nepali Congress party. Koirala rejected the request
outright, sources said. The power struggle within the ruling party seems to be peaking up
once again weeks before the party is to convene its 10th convention early next year to
choose its new leadership.
The root of the present crisis goes
back to similar infighting within the ruling Nepali Congress when premier Koirala resigned
from his post, dissolved the parliament and called for mid-term polls in 1994 after 36 of
the ruling Congress legislators abstained in a crucial vote in the House. "There is a
grand design to destabilize democracy," Koirala said.. People punished the Congress by reducing
its size in the parliament. But by virtue of being the second largest party, it had
considerable influence within and out of the parliament. The hung parliament that came up after the
mid-term polls gave rise to the minority UML government which lasted for only nine months.
Then began a succession of coalition governments, some of which lasted for only six
months. The coalition-era saw the degeneration of parliamentary politics, decline in
different wings of government, growing corruption, and mismanagement. Mysteriously, the
Maoist rebellion sprang up in remote mid-western hills during the coalition-era. Though Koirala managed to bag a majority
for his party by proposing Bhattarai as the next prime minister in the general elections
last year, fighting within the party had begun even before Bhattarai could complete six
months in office. Pro-Koirala Congress lawmakers staged a revolt within the party and
forced Bhattarai to resign within nine months in power. As incumbent Prime Minister
Koirala is forced to devote his time and energy to manage intra-party wrangling, he seems
to be incapable to exercise his authority as the country's chief executive to resolve the
country's outstanding problems. What happened to Koirala -- with his
political career spanning over five-decades -- who once threatened to pull down the
minority UML government "at a puff" in 1995 and successfully ousted the
communists from power by cobbling up a coalition of Rastriya Prajatantra Party and Nepal
Sadbhavana Party. There may be a number of reasons for the
erosion of the authority of the prime minister as an institution. "The erosion of
authority of the prime minister started during the coalition era. That legacy continues
and is very much effective till now," said Prof. Krishna Khanal, a political
scientist at the Tribhuvan University, who has served as advisor to Prime Minister
Koirala. Unlike the defiant leader he was in the
early nineties, the 78-year-old prime minister is making compromises at every step. Here
is an example. Responding to a call by the main opposition, Unified Marxist-Leninist,
party to amend certain clauses in the constitution including formation of a caretaker
government to oversee general elections, Koirala said last month that there was no need of
such an amendment. "You may blame political leaders but not the constitution for the
present ills in the country," said Koirala. Within a few weeks, he agreed to form a
task force to study proposed amendments in the decade-old democratic constitution of the
country. Analysts say the present mismanagement in
governance is direct fallout of weak leadership. "This is an outcome of the crisis of
leadership," said Dr. Panna Kaji Amatya, professor of political science at the
Tribhuvan University. "Our political leaders lack national vision. Whether it is the
ruling party or the opposition they don't have a national agenda. Leadership on both sides
is short-sighted. They are driven by their petty interests rather than the interests of
the people."
Opposition leaders, on their part,
blame the ruling Congress for the present mess in the country. "The present
stagnation in the country is an outcome of ëmindlessness' of Nepali Congress
leaders," said Pradip Nepal, an MP and UML spokesman. "NC is a party of
irresponsible leaders. They do not have a vision, plan or program. They might have been
fit to rule the country in the 19th century, but not in the present 21st century." While political parties blame each other,
people continue to suffer. The country's economy is also suffering from the political
instability as other organs of the state, too, don't function. No major investment has
come over the last few years. Businessmen are now expressing frustration
at the way things are moving. "None of the governments in the past gave priority to
the economic agenda. Even the good policies could not be implemented due to political
instability," said Ravi Bhakta Shrestha, first Vice President of the Federation of
Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI). Added Binod Bahadur Shrestha, third
Vice President of the FNCCI, "Files don't move in the government offices unless
orders are issued from the political level. The bureaucracy has ceased to function for the
last four to five years." A capable and efficient bureaucracy is
considered as an important pillar of the government. Unfortunately, like other
institutions, politicians have also interfered in the day to day functioning of the
bureaucracy destroying its very essence of neutrality. "A government can perform only if
there is a right leadership both at the political and bureaucratic level and an
environment for the judicious use of public resources," said Goraksha Bahadur Nucche
Pradhan, a veteran former civil servant. "The country stands to lose if the permanent
civil service is shaken up unnecessarily." Good Governance In Nepal's context, the concept of good
governance is a new one. After the restoration of democracy, the term has become a
buzzword both for development workers as well as the donors. Former prime minister of
Thailand Anand Panyarchun has defined good governance as "putting in place the
mechanisms to define what constitutes the public interest and seeing that public interest
is served despite everything else". Governance, in principle, encapsulates the
mechanisms for the expression and exchange of interests and ideas, and for the effective
and peaceful resolution of conflicting views in the decision-making process. It concerns
the structures that underpin the legitimacy of all decision-making and policy. "Governance is important because it
impacts directly on the lives of poor people. Indeed, there is an array of evidence that
suggests that poor people are less able to avoid the adverse consequences of poor
governance and therefore bear a disproportionate share of the ill effects of systems and
structures of governance that do not reflect their interests," said Andrew Goudie,
Director of the Department for International Development, of the British gove ----access
government services, while only 14 percent of the non-poor paid such bribes. In Calcutta,
the figures were respectively 12 percent and 5 percent. "The starting point in
addressing governance problems and in prioritizing concerns should be poor people
themselves, with a focus on the substantive areas in which development would provide them
with greatest benefit," said Goudie. Issues of governance are at the center of
many of the most pressing challenges confronting countries throughout the Asian and
Pacific region today. In East and Southeast Asia, the need for greater transparency and
accountability in regulating the financial sector has been one of the key problems behind
the currency turmoil, corporate bankruptcies, and falling stock markets that have plagued
the region since July 1997. In South Asia, issues of restricting the reach of state
intervention and improving the delivery of basic services, such as health care and
education, are high on the agenda. Economies in transition in Central and Southeast Asia
are grappling with redefining the role of the state, shifting the balance between central
and local power, and providing civil service employees with appropriate skills for
managing a market economy. In the Pacific, issues of public sector efficiency,
effectiveness, and accountability are particularly important for ensuring the long-term
viability of small economies. Crisis in Governance In the case of Nepal, the crisis in
governance emanated as none of the governments since 1990 were able to reflect popular
mandate in their governments. The Nepali Congress failed to respect the popular mandate
given by the people in 1991 due to internal squabbling and the minority or coalition
governments afterwards lacked such clear mandate, at the first place. "Our leadership
has failed to bring about a balance between the wish of electorate and management of the
government on behalf of the party," said Prof. Khanal. "Intra-party feud has had
little impact on governance in countries like Japan and India. But in our case, we have
failed to develop strong institutions of the government and all of them are power
oriented." According to Prof. Khanal, democratic
exercise of power by an elected government has been blocked in Nepal in an undeclared way.
None of the governments since 1990 have been able to complete their tenure.
"Different forces are trying to fish in the troubled waters created in the aftermath
of the Maoist rebellion. Some elements are enjoying parallel authority in an undeclared
way whereas elected offices are witnessing erosion of their authority," said Prof.
Khanal. "You may have full authority in the constitution, but in practice you
don't." So, where lies the problem? Governance in
Nepal consists of three broad vectors -- the state, the market and all the intermediary
institutions between the family and state, popularly known as civil society, says Dev Raj
Dahal, associate professor of political science at the Tribhuvan University. According to
him, Nepal has more than its fair share of problems: Bhutanese refugees, poverty,
tribalism, partisan and weak administration, shortage of skills, low saving rates, large
physical distances, poor infrastructure, weak entrepreneurial tradition, etc. "The
ten years of parliamentary politics has shown itself to be a symbol of collective failure
of the elected representatives. Major political parties have become more and more obsessed
with the race for power and less and less concerned about the reform of political
processes. Successive governments, too, lacked effective governance -- formulating public
policies and properly executing them. It is that kind of uncertainty that the Maoists and
conservatives are seizing upon and, in the process, moving quickly into the scene." Critics blame the government's present
policies for such ills. "Nobody knows what is the state of poverty, unemployment,
investment or savings in the country at present as the National Planning Commission has
failed to conduct mid-term review of the Ninth Five Year plan (1997-2002). Everything is
running on the basis of ad-hocism. You can't run a government like this," said Dr.
Raghav D. Pant, former Vice Chairman of NPC. "The government's policies are
responsible for raising poverty and unemployment and, hence, contributing to create a
fertile ground for Maoists." The liberal economic policies adopted by
Nepali Congress government since 1991 and more or less continued by its successors has
created wealth for a few but has isolated many. The political leadership has failed to
sell the rationale and need for economic reforms. It has even failed to cash on positive
economic performance like an estimated 6 percent growth of GDP this year. There could be different set of
propositions to translate the concept of good governance into practice in Nepal.
Anthropologist Dr. Krishna Bhattachan proposes three set of preconditions to realize, what
he calls, national governance in Nepal. The constitution and laws fully and firmly
affirm equality on the basis of gender, caste/ethnicity, language, religion and region. All public offices should be represented
proportionally by all caste/ethnic, gender, language, religious and regional groups, and The devolution of power or ethnic autonomy
is practiced. At a time when extreme left and extreme
right forces are hell bent on destroying the present constitution -- a consensus document
between the King, Nepali Congress and United Left Front -- major political parties are in
the race for power. "It has been proved that the Congress can't rule the country. So,
Prime Minister Koirala should resign and call fresh elections. We are ready to give a
viable alternative," said UML leader Nepal. Political scientist Prof. Khanal thinks
that all the political parties who have faith in the present constitution should act
responsibly. "The major parties should not get involved in short-term expediency and
work together to keep people's faith upon the constitution and democratic process,"
he said. Will the leaders listen? |
|| Coverstory
|| Supreme
Court || Congress
Infighting || CPN-ML
Convention || Interview
|| |
Send your feedback to the
editor: spotligh@mos.com.np |
