National 1 (Spotlight Weekly)

Under Pressure

Following the resignation of Thapa government and increasing threats from the Maoists, local leaders are fast deserting their positions

By SANJAYA DHAKAL

Eight months after the government nominated them, the heads of the local bodies have began to resign en masse owing to the growing Maoist threat against their lives and the sudden discharge of the government that appointed them in the first place resulting in a political vacuum in villages and cities.

A rural village : Lacking service

In view of the Maoist threat – for whom the local leaders became sitting ducks – many nominated heads and members of District Development Committees (DDCs), Village Development Committees (VDCs) as well as mayors of municipalities had resigned in the last couple of months. But this process received a fillip after Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa resigned on May 8 in the face of agitation by other political parties.

A day after PM Thapa resigned, ten ward chairmen of Butwal municipality – located some 300 km west of the capital – resigned en masse citing moral grounds. Likewise heads and members of VDCs of western district of Baglung, too, resigned en masse after Thapa stepped down.

Mayors and ward chairmen of Lalitpur as well as Kirtipur municipalities have also stepped down en masse.

In Pokhara, the second most important town of Nepal, mayor Harka Bahadur Gurung has resigned early this week. Likewise, chairman of Kaski DDC – located in the western Nepal – Kamal Man Gurung has resigned.

“Yes, we have heard about a lot of resignation in the newspapers. But we do not have the exact figures on how many have resigned,” said an official at the Local Bodies Support Section at the Ministry of Local Development (MoLD).

The Ministry has, till date, nominated heads and some members in 850 VDCs – out of the total of over 3900 VDCs in the country. Likewise, it has filled the vacancies in 30-35 DDCs – out of the total of 75. It has also nominated mayors in few dozens of municipalities – out of the total of 57.

The local bodies – the only face of the government for the population of rural villages – had remained without elected heads after then government allowed to expire the tenure of earlier elected local bodies in July 16, 2002 without conducting the elections – thereby, discharging around 213,922 elected representatives including tens of thousands of ward members and VDC members. Each VDC consists of nine wards and each ward has a chairman, one woman member and three other members. Like village wards, there are city wards in municipalities.

For one and a half year, the local bodies were effectively dead as the government only appointed its own secretaries to conduct day to day functions but who mostly were holed up in the district headquarters fearing the Maoist wrath. As a result, villagers had to trek for days even to get their citizenship certificate made. The local bodies are entrusted to carry out many basic administrative functions including recommending for citizenship and passport; and providing certificates of death, birth, marriage while even providing some judicial functions by settling minor disputes. These apart, they were also the vehicle of development in the villages and cities. The Local Self Governance Act 1998 provided them with a number of duties and responsibilities in terms of raising local taxes and performing developmental activities.

The outgoing government led by Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa had amended the Act through an ordinance allowing for the government to nominate the heads and members of local bodies till elections could be held for the same. But with his government having resigned, the nominated members – most of whom are political activists belonging to various parties as well as former elected members – have started to back out.

A senior lawyer Krishna Man Pradhan says, “The legal status of these nominated members does not change as long as the ordinance that amended the Act is effective. Any change in government does not matter. They will have to worry only if the current amendment ordinance – which needs to be re-approved by the government every six months – is allowed to die.”

However, even before the government stepped down, the nominated heads of local bodies were under tremendous pressure from the Maoists – who were the main beneficiaries of the political vacuum at the village level. Having forced most political activists out of the villages, the Maoists turned their attention to the nominated heads ever since they took office. They issued many threats and even killed them in some places. Moreover, non-support from the mainstream political parties who claimed Thapa government itself as illegitimate, did not help their cause either.

Just on May 8, the Maoists beheaded Bhim Lal Hirachan, chairman of Rasuwa DDC – on the north of Kathmandu valley. On January 15, Gopal Giri, mayor of industrial city of Birgunj, was shot to death by the Maoists.

Maoists regularly threat the local bodies members and force them to resign. In Hetauda – a city around 100 km south of Kathmandu – chairmen of one dozen VDCs resigned under pressure from the Maoists last week.

With the spate of resignations by local leaders, it is the people who are being hit the hardest. “Even though there were no elected local bodies, the nominated members at least provided a semblance of service-delivery in some districts. Now even that is fast fading out. In this situation, the government, too, would not be in a position to fill up the vacancies in many more VDCs,” rued an official.

“Due to the political instability and the conflict, the people now are getting more and more detached from the government. In the absence of local bodies, village people are now left in the lurch,” said Dhan Bahadur Karki, a native of Kavre district who works as a vegetable vendor in Kathmandu. “With no service in my district, I had to come to the capital city to earn livelihood for my family.”