Jan 1, 2018-In 2017, Nepal witnessed the completion of three levels of elections that will help it move out of the transition phase into a federal democratic republic. With the left alliance between CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Centre) being the victors in the federal and provincial elections, the country is looking forward to ushering in a new government that promises to deliver stability for the next five years. Mukul Humagain and Kamal Dev Bhattarai talked to political analyst Professor Krishna Khanal, over his reviews of the past year, and his outlook on the future.
This year, we’ve had elections for three levels of governance, and the country has all but entered into the federal republic structure. How would you review the year 2017 in terms of Nepali politics?
I did not think that 2017 would end with all that we have politically accomplished. Yes, we did have a political agenda to complete this past year (such as completion of the three levels of elections). However, with the way things looked even until June or July, I am really surprised that the elections were held successfully by the end of the year.
All that we have accomplished should prop up this past year as being a historic one. Since Nepal made a drastic change in its political landscape in 2006, these elections can be marked as the third major event—the first being the beginning of the peace process in 2006, which was then followed by the forming of a new constitution. This is the end of a phase, though by no means has everything been resolved. This has been an opportune year for things to fall into place. Since the constitution was ratified in 2015, we didn’t have to wait till 2017 to conduct local level elections—yet all levels of polls were finally held this year. There was also the question of the Madhes protests and the Madhesi parties demand for constitutional amendment. Though we have not seen any concrete change towards fulfilment of Madhesi parties’ demands and the constitution has not been amendment, by the end of 2017 we witnessed that entry of Madhesi parties into the electoral process that they were initially boycotting. It doesn’t mean that the Madhes issue is over, but the parties did come to realise that the way forward is through constitutional means.
You mentioned that the elections being held marks the end of the transition phase, which began in 2006 when the decade long civil unrest gave way to the peace process.
The transition process has many arms. What I mean to say is that with the constitution being promulgated and elections being held, we are at the end of one of the arms of this transition. Even as we are at the end of 2017, or the beginning of 2018, we still haven’t seen the new federal parliamentary structure being implemented. We are still being run by a transitional government too. The President and Premier currently in office have been elected under transitional provisions of the constitution. However, I do believe that the majority of the political part of the transition process hadsended. The constitution also has an entire chapter on the transition phase ending after elections are held to bring in the new federal governance structure, and that too is near completion now—it is just a matter of weeks before the new parliamentary structure and a new government is in place.
When the constitution was promulgated in 2015, the Madhesi parties, like you mentioned, decided to not support it. They wanted amendments to the constitution. You explained that with time, 2017 saw the Madhesi parties enter into the electoral process even without demand fulfilment. How did the issues crop up, then subside, and in what ways do you see the demands of the Madhesi people being voiced in the future?
After the promulgation of the constitution, we definitely fell into a political spiral. It reached a point where the entire populace faced great difficulties due to the economic blockade. And this was because India did not accept the political situation here. We did have our arguments of being a sovereign nation, but we could not convince them otherwise. Now, I’m not saying that the Madhesi issues are not valid. But the issues were definitely made into an excuse by our neighbours. Such tactics of diplomacy were used by our neighbours then that are not even used during war. We had no functional routes for trade besides through India, and they blocked our only trade route. But because Nepal took a stand supporting its new constitution, even India had no room for negotiations but to seek the changes it wanted through the constitutional process. I think the Madhesi parties also learnt a lesson that, to see the change they want (even though their demands are genuine) they could not rely on external pressure alone and had to join the constitutional process from within.
The results of the provincial and federal elections showed that the people have given their mandate to the left alliance. How do you read the results?
The agreements that were in place between the three major parties during and after the constitutional implementation were broken. Nepali Congress was not in the same page as the CPN-UML and the Maoists. The way the three had originally planned to hold off on elections did not occur, with NC calling for elections immediately. Now, due to the Indian blockade, the landscape in Nepal had changed to one supporting a “Nationalistic” brand of politics. The anti-India sentiment post-blockade has been used by political forces, with the UML being the political force manipulating this sentiment and with KP Oli being seen as its leader. This overall situation had an effect on the elections. However, the effect of was underwhelming. UML would have completely swept local elections if this brand of politics had been entirely successful. However, the Nepali congress has managed to keep its political presence almost everywhere in the local level.
Hence, the UML had to rely on an alliance for provincial and parliamentary polls. The way Proportional Representation (PR) contributes to 40 percent of seats in Parliament, it is practically not possible for one single political party to win an absolute majority. Since 2006 at least, Nepal’s parliamentary structure has essentially been divvied up between three forces—UML, NC and Maoists. Now, we are seeing the emergence of a fourth block, which are the Madhes-based parties. So, an alliance to win majority seats in Parliament makes complete sense when discussing national politics. The left alliance may or may not be the special alignment of like-minded forces to bring about political change, but an alliance makes sense. And a pre-electoral alliance makes more sense because, though legally and constitutionally allowed to do so, it will be very difficult for pre-electoral alliances to break apart because voters will be watching ahead of the next round of elections.
Unfortunately, the NC-led alliance was not really viewed as being strong enough. But for stable politics, two stable alliances are always needed. India for the past two decades now has been run by either a Congress-led alliance, or a BJP one. Some people also viewed these elections as a contest between communist and democratic forces. However, I do not see Nepal being run on ideology based politics anytime soon. The communist parties are so in name only, and the parties’ philosophies do not retain much of the communist rhetoric anymore. Neither is there a pro-India or pro-china rhetoric here. There was no need to paint the left or Democratic alliance in any ideological colour. They were both just pre-electoral alliances.
http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2018-01-01/left-alliance-energised-voters-but-their-vote-wasnt-for-a-single-party.html
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