SLAPPing Democracy

The debate about who is less accountable to the public: politicians or bureaucrats is as old as Nepal’s democracy itself.

Some blame politicians for being beholden to the businessmen who finance their electoral campaigns, and are forced to return the favour with contracts and kickbacks when in power. 

Others say it is civil servants who are neither civil nor servants, and know the inner workings of the system to exploit loopholes – they then teach ministers, MPs, mayors, or ward chairs which juicy projects can be squeezed. And everyone gets their share.

In reality, it is probably not a case of either, or. Both have their hands deep in the honey pot. Corruption is now such a given that yet another exposé in the mainstream press, like the latest visit-visa scam, does not raise eyebrows anymore.

We may have to edit Lord Acton’s famous quote to say that in Nepal we do not even need absolute power to corrupt absolutely. The ruling cartel has divvied up the spoils, so that no one ever faces charges. The three parties all know about the skeletons rattling in each other’s closets, and they cancel each other out.

Politicians and bureaucrats get all the blame for taking bribes, but what of the givers of bribes? In this crony capitalism, businesses invariably need political patrons in an elaborate national network of give-and-take.

Politicians and businesses work hand-in-glove so that conflict of interest in contracts, insider trading, cartelling, and non-performing assets of banks become the norm. Our survey after the 2017 local election showed that out of the 753 newly-elected local government chairs, nearly 300 were contractors involved in sand-mining, quarrying, or transportation syndicates.

Nepal’s tycoons have discovered that instead of donating to election war chests of politicians, it is a much surer return on investment to spend the money to become legislators and politicians themselves.

In democracies, there are checks and balances to control corruption when it becomes endemic. The Nepal Police and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) are supposed to do the detective work without political interference. The courts are required to be independent in dispensing justice and punishing crooks.

But the less said about the judiciary the better. A writ petition in the Supreme Court last week accused our sister magazine HimalKhabar of contempt of court for two stories: one about how high courts have been overturning a majority of verdicts of district courts in cases of rape, and another about the Biratnagar High Court clearing a self-proclaimed holy man, Krishna Bahadur Giri, of rape despite police presenting physical evidence.

The doctrine of the separation of powers stipulates that it is when the other three pillars in a democracy are compromised that the role of the free press becomes even more vital. The world over, as soon as populist autocrats are elected to the executive, their first order of business is to co-opt the legislature and the judiciary. Then they buy off, intimidate, or neutralise the media with Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP).

Nepal’s officialdom seems to be taking midnight Zoom lessons from other despots on how to gag the media. Last month, popular talk show host Dil Bhushan Pathak was served an arrest warrant by the Kathmandu District Court for a YouTube explainer about the alleged involvement of the son of Foreign Minister Arzu Deuba Rana in a reported purchase of Kathmandu’s Hilton Hotel.

The Lalitpur District Court ruled that Pathak could not be arrested without fair trial, but this week the Kathmandu District Court filed another case against the journalist based on a complaint by the Cyber Bureau, and put him on a fugitive list. 

Without going into the veracity of Pathak’s explainer, it is deeply problematic that the Electronic Transaction Act has been invoked – proof that politicians are getting the courts and investigating agencies to make an example of a high profile journalist. 

The intention is to silence media investigations into the fake refugee scandal in which the main partner in the ruling coalition is implicated, and in which one of its former home ministers was jailed last year.

The Kathmandu High Court has been mysteriously active in targeting journalists these days. Bizmandu and Nepalkhabar were served a notice last month to withdraw a story they did on the Chair of the Security and Exchange Board of Nepal (SEBON) Santosh Narayan Shrestha allegedly demanding kickbacks from hydropower investors. 

Incredibly, the court even asked the two portals not to report on the subject anymore – a ruling so absurd that the Patan High Court overturned it a week later. 

The allegations against Shrestha were made in a public meeting of the Independent Power Producers Association of Nepal (IPPAN), and MPs demanded a Parliament inquiry into the regulator. HimalKhabar reported this week that while Shrestha was reportedly demanding commissions from private investors for IPOs, he cleared primary share sales in Bajhang’s 10.75MW Bungal Hydro in which his family members have investments, company records show.

And then just on Monday, bureaucrats hoodwinked MPs by deleting references in a bill requiring a two-year ‘cooling off’ period under which retiring civil servants could be barred from holding constitutional positions for two years.

The contest for who is more corrupt: bureauacrats, politicians, or the private sector is on.

Kunda Dixit