National 2 (Spotlight Weekly)

POLITICS
Crisis Of Confidence

Despite being bound with common interests, there continues to exist crisis of confidence among country’s major political forces

By KESHAB POUDEL

King Gyanendra and political leaders have already opened a dialogue to find a way out to overcome the political impasse but they are not yet in a position to fully trust each other.

Koirala : When will the impasse end?

Even after the beginning of negotiations, student groups affiliated to the country’s agitating parties are still destroying public property and the backers of the King seem to be in no mood to share the power with agitating parties by activating the constitution. Whatever the mood of backers of active monarchy or the core group around Congress leader Girija Prasad Koirala, both the forces have realized that there needs to be more such exercises in the days to come.

After meeting with King Gyanendra, Congress leader and former prime minister Koirala has revealed that there is still crisis of confidence between the King and the political forces. The observation of octogenarian political leader Koirala, who took part in a series of tough negotiations with late King Mahendra in 1960s, has a definite political meaning.

Following the establishment of democracy in 1950s, the country has passed through many rounds of political crises whenever there emerged the crisis of confidence between the patriotic monarchist forces and patriotic democratic forces.

The present political crisis also a result of no-confidence and loss of trust between them. One of the lackings among democratic and patriotic monarchist forces is that they fail to build understanding among themselves on the basis of their commonalities. Since democratic and monarchist forces both have bright future only in stable society with democratic system, the extremists are their common enemy.

The ground situation now is different as monarchists and democratic forces are very swayed by the extremists. At a time when the democrats ought to be defending the monarchy and vice versa, both the forces appear hostile to each other giving away precious space for extremists to take advantage.

Although King Gyanendra expresses his commitment to the constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy and Congress leaders are stressing the need to activate the Constitution of Kingdom of Nepal 1990, which is based on the essence of constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy – both the forces clearly have points of converging interest.

Such commonalities are yet to be reflected in the King Gyanedra’s and Congress leader Koirala’s quest to find out the amicable solution to the present political impasse. In the Congress camp, Congress leaders like Narahari Acharya, who is in face value a liberal democrat but practically closer to extremists - are making efforts to abort the process of confidence building. Monarchist sympathizers do not trust Koirala when they see people like Acharya surrounding Koirala and the Congress party.

“There must be some kinds of confidence between democratic patriotic forces and monarchist patriotic forces,” said a political analyst. “Since they have so many points of common interests, nobody understands why they are not coming closer.”

Although the first round of meeting between King Gyanendra and democratic leaders has been held, it appears that many more rounds of such consultations may be required to bury differences and develop understandings.

After meeting with King Gyanendra, Congress leader Koirala has sincerely shown interest in developing understanding with the monarch. In his last leg of political career, Koirala, who has spent almost all his life championing democracy and individual freedom, could do a lot.

But steps have to be taken to translate the confidence building measures in reality. For starters, Congress president Koirala could control his student wings and colleagues who are fanning anti-monarchy and pro-republican agenda.

Both the King and Congress leader have many limitations since they cannot take the decision on individual basis. Only solution for them is the activation of the Constitution of Kingdom of Nepal 1990.This is not time to create more tension and confrontation but the one to develop understanding

“There is no question to compromise with monarchy as the country is already heading towards the republic,” declared Congress leader Nara Hari Acharya, who has made every efforts to disrupt the negotiations process between King Gyanendra and Congress leader Koirala.

Monarchists, too, are not above the board. “There is no question of bringing the so called democratic leaders to the power who are responsible for the present mess in the first place,” said a pro-monarchist.

In the quest for power struggle, the disputes have widened. “All must realize that a democratic leader is patriotic and monarchist,” said a political analyst.

The institution of monarchy has a long history and it is Nepal’s own institution whereas the democracy is another important instrument that can further popularize the institution of monarchy, as was seen in the last twelve years. If these two forces choose the path of confrontation, there is little hope for the evolution of democratic culture.

This is not the first time when two forces have been divided in such a manner. After the dismissal of B.P. Koirala’s government by King Mahendra in 1960, the country had gone through very difficult phase witnessing widening misunderstanding between democratic and monarchist forces. With the bold decision by late B.P. Koirala, the situation has changed.

As long as there continues to be crisis of confidence, one cannot see any meeting point between monarchy and democratic forces for a political solution.