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Polls Provoked
Provocations and counter-provocations have further soiled the environment for fair elections
By SANJAYA DHAKAL
The current Nepali political spectrum is soiled by provocations and counter provocations by extremists. Amid this pendulum play, the prospects for widely participated polls have further dampened.
On the one hand, there are people like Parshu Narayan Chaudhary, chairman of Raj Parishad Standing Committee, and Home Minister Kamal Thapa who are bent on bull-dozing the government determination to hold the municipal polls (on February 8) come what may.
“It is our duty to show to political parties that people are with us by successfully holding the elections,” thundered Chaudhary at a recent meeting of the Raj Parishad. Even Home Minister Kamal Thapa, a well-known centrist politician, is harping the threatening tone of the government by warning the parties who have called to actively boycott the polls.
Even the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Keshab Raj Rajbhandari seems to have joined the political fray by making a number of statements saying that the polls would be held under any circumstances as it was necessary to ‘show to the international community.’
On the other hand, leaders like Madhav Kumar Nepal , general secretary of the Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) and Ram Chandra Poudel, general secretary of the Nepali Congress (NC), are making harsh comments against the polls.
“The poll has no meaning. We will intensify the agitation and achieve the goal of democratic republic within this year,” clamored Nepal at a recent public meeting in mid-west. Poudel has termed the polls as ‘drama’ and vowed to disrupt it.
As far as the Maoists are concerned, nobody really expected them to favor elections anyway. They have already announced series of programs aimed at disrupting the polls through the use of violence.
Amid the brouhaha, it is intriguing to note how the polls have become such a political hot potato among the parties – whose existence depends on the regular elections. It is equally amusing to note who needs this election – while the current regime that is widely called by the political parties as being authoritarian and undemocratic seems hell bent on holding the polls, the very parties are vowing to boycott the polls. But it would be unfair to lay the blame on only one side. As senior politician Dr. Prakash Chandra Lohani recently said, the government is pursuing ‘take it or leave it’ policy when it does not have the overwhelming power to subdue other forces in the country.
At a time when even former prime minister and president of Rastriya Janashakti Party (RJP) has declared his party would boycott the polls that is not participated by NC and UML, it has exposed the failure of the government to create conducive environment.
Sadder part is nobody is talking about improving the environment. Everybody is busy either supporting or boycotting the polls. So, the end victim could be the election itself – which is the lifeline of democracy.
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