Never too late

The Maoists launched their armed struggle in 1996, barely five years after the pro-democracy People’s Movement. They reasoned that the revolution needed to be taken to its logical conclusion with violence. Despite that, the opposition Maoist-Centre party today wants the word ‘violence’ struck off Parliament records.  

This Nepali Times editorial published 20 years ago this week on issue #214 17–23 September 2004 might as well have been written today. And the ruling UML-NC coalition wants to amend the 2015 Constitution. The Maoist insurgency is over but the end of war has not meant peace. Excerpts:

How can we ensure accountability when tainted figures seem to have no problem returning to public office through the ballot? The resolution of the current conflict offers us the opportunity to address this defect in our polity. Not to go back to the absolutism of Panchayat or a Maoist dystopia, but to make the necessary changes so that rulers are accountable and democracy can deliver.

The extreme left and right both want to drastically rewrite the constitution, and the centrists are going along with it because they are competing to sound more radical. Rather than throw the book out, politicians would do well to analyse what made them so unaccountable when they were in power, and fix that first.

It is this country’s tragedy that for far too long, we have had the wrong people at the right places. Conflict resolution is about compromise and sharing power, and it is never too late to start doing that.

For archived material of Nepali Times of the past 20 years, site search: nepalitimes.com.