Politics as usual

The winter session of Parliament is set to begin amidst a warmer-than-usual winter season. But things do not look too cosy between the governing coalition and the opposition parties.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s Maoist Centre is currently benched, and is trying to ride a rising wave of public discontent. It has in its crosshairs the coalition’s plan to fast-track five ordinances related to governance, business, investment and real estate. Expect sloganeering and rostrum gheraos when the august House convenes.

Opposition leaders say the issue is not with the content of the draft amendments themselves, but the manner in which they are being passed.

This is not new. Nepal’s leaders love to amend laws through ordinances rather than votes in Parliament. What is puzzling is why a government made up of an alliance of two of the biggest parties with the near two-thirds majority required to pass laws through the Lower House, resorted to executive decisions to introduce new laws?

What, then, is the role of the legislators when the job they were elected by the Nepali people to do is largely carried out through executive orders?

The political leadership justifies taking the ordinance route because of delays in the legislative process. This is emblematic of a wider problem in Nepal’s politics, where leaders employ ad hoc solutions to problems instead of taking a long hard look into the flaws within the legislative process, governance and the state mechanism as a whole.

Understandably, this is such a can of worms that the leadership is unwilling to confront it head on. But confront it they must. If the long-serving prime ministers of the three parties carefully read the outcome of the recent Sharecast Initiative public opinion survey, they will learn that more than half of the Nepali public is unhappy with the direction politics is headed.

The survey should be an eye-opener and a dire warning to politicians to shape up or ship out in the limited time ahead of the general elections in 2027. Poll respondents have listed weak governance and corruption holding back job creation. Most respondents cited migration as the most attractive option. Nepalis are therefore voting with their feet.

The survey shows that Nepalis reject pre-electoral alliances and the tottering coalitions they produce, blaming this for the country having to suffer five revolving door governments in the last five years.

Prime Minister Oli has made it a point to reassert that he will hand over power to Deuba as agreed. Deuba certainly needed reassurance, since his chance at a sixth premiership in these turn-by-turn deals had been scuttled more than once before.

Deuba and Oli don’t get it. The 2022 election with the rise of independent alternatives was an early warning. The Sharecast Initiative survey confirms this disillusionment with serial prime ministers and their cadre and cronies.

Instead, political leaders are too busy putting out (or lighting) fires within their own parties and alliances. The establishment is focused on partnerships, not policy, and this has hurt good governance.

But not everything is doom and gloom. Respondents in the survey have a seemingly contradictory view that despite disappointment with the state of the state, a majority feel the quality of their lives have improved. They are also quite satisfied with the performance of local governments.

And even as elected leaders try increasingly to undermine the legitimacy of the press, and amid a rapidly evolving digital landscape, Nepalis by and large have maintained trust in the mainstream media.

Journalists would do well not take that trust for granted, however. The media is partly responsible for spreading public cynicism and despair. Daily headlines are obsessed with quarrelsome politicians, and its blow-by-blow coverage in turn keeps them quarrelling perpetually.

Positive news does not sell media subscriptions, and social media algorithms feed on fear-mongering, anger and hatred. Politics is not just about who stabbed whom on the back yesterday. Infighting has become so endless that it is to be expected and not breaking news.

Coverage of the Sharecast Initiative survey results by the media last week was followed by vigorous debate on its results. Many on social media were incensed that it dared to show that Nepalis were half-hopeful about the future. Those who agreed that it was not all hopeless were mercilessly trolled. It behooves some to be doomscrollers.

In all this, there was a deafening silence from the political class. Are they even listening to the voice of the people?

They should get hold of a copy of the survey, and chart out a strategy for their future political survival based on that. But we can already tell them the main message: Clean up your act and start delivering.

Shristi Karki