Gold standard

This week, discourse in Nepal’s public sphere has been dominated by numbers and net worth of ministers in the new government following their asset-disclosures.

The inventories revealed the considerable wealth of a majority of the new ministers. This unleashed a deluge of comments and opinion — mostly on social media.

Many considered that Nepal just replaced the old rich with a new rich and that nothing has changed. 

Others see it as anti-RSP hysteria. Wealth accumulated when the leaders were private citizens should not be the business of the public, that their financial security will make them less inclined to corruption.

The argument is: plutocrats are less likely to be kleptocrats.

For most Nepalis who voted for the RSP, this has been a new reality check. Most had taken to the streets in September in large part due to outrage over the wealth gap between ordinary Nepalis and those who benefitted from and flaunted wealth and privilege gained through corruption, nepotism, and political connections. 

Nepalis saw the nation’s new elected officials as a reflection of themselves — identifying with their youth, their social and professional backgrounds, their disillusionment with the entrenched power structure, their shared struggle. Nepal’s leaders finally seemed approachable and accessible. 

The fact that most Cabinet members are well-off, in particular the fact that many of them have generational wealth— even though it might be honestly earned— has made them significantly less relatable to most Nepalis now.

This has also served as another reminder that the political hierarchy is still largely dominated by the privileged class.

Home Minister Sudan Gurung's defensive statement on social media which read, in part, ‘It is not your fault if you are born poor, but it is your fault if you die poor’ (a quote by Bill Gates) did not help. 

Gurung later deleted this statement. It drew criticism because it framed poverty as a lack of initiative. This was reductive and unfair to the millions of Nepalis who work their entire lives, often venturing far from home in search for better opportunities. Many faced with unemployment and lack of capital, savings do not have the cushion of inherited wealth to fall back on. 

This also serves is a reminder that Nepal does not just need competent leadership, it also needs empathetic leaders.

In any case, perhaps, the depth of scrutiny into how the ministers earned their wealth outside of politics might be unwarranted at this early point in many of their careers. 

But on the issue of politico-administrative patronage, cronyism, and nepotism on which the RSP built its institutional and electoral platform, the leadership must be answerable to the public. 

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Last week, Prime Minister Balendra Shah relieved Labour Minister Dipak Sah of his portfolio after the RSP found him to have misused his position to ensure his wife’s appointment to the Health Insurance Board, an action for which Health Minister Nisha Mehta was also given an official warning. 

But do the same rules apply to other leaders? The newly-appointed Attorney General Narayan Kandel was previously legal counsel to Rabi Lamichhane, and will now have to prosecute Laichhane’s pending cases, representing a clear conflict of interest. 

Lamichhane himself has become a member of the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee, which oversees the very law enforcement agencies that are tasked with looking into his cases. 

An analysis on Ukaalo this week also exposed how newly-elected RSP lawmakers, many of them influential business owners with direct stakes in the business, finance, tourism, and infrastructure sectors— now sit in Parliamentary Committees that would directly benefit their interests. 

Meanwhile, after criticism of its directive that official notices be published or broadcast only on state-run media— police this week arrested a content creator for posting a derogatory video of political leaders including the Prime Minister.  

This is the same rule-by-fear tactic thin-skinned leaders of the past have employed to restrict freedom of expression. A Prime Minister who previously publicly criticised the arrest of another rapper over his lyrics as ‘the police having nothing better to do’, who in his own music did not mince his words or shy away from epithets, and who was generous with expletives to lambast legacy parties and neighbouring nations on social media, cannot now countenance similar rhetoric by ordinary citizens. 

The Prime Minister is yet to address Parliament let alone the nation. His reputation as a doer-not-a-talker, leader of mystery will only pacify the public for so long. 

All this to prove that digital platforms are double-edged swords: the same network that propelled some to power also has the power to speak truth to it.