<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131128/637234a69c7e80680e0c4945jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Photo: NEPALI TIMES ARCHIVES</figcaption></figure>Nepal’s elections have traditionally been driven by vote-bank politics. Voters cast their ballots depending on generational party affiliation, caste, ethnic or regional allegiances.The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/making-kathmandu-great-again/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">election of Balen Shah</a> as mayor of Kathmandu in May local elections showed that people are fed up with politics as usual, they blame the mainstream parties, and are ready to abandon traditional loyalty to vote banks.The other factor that could impact this shift is the growing number of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/nepals-gen-next/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">new, young and social media savvy voters</a> who do not cast their ballots along traditional party lines.There were 17,733,723 registered voters in the May elections, which was 3,659,299 more than the previous election in 2017. Nepal’s youth bulge means that there could be as many as 350,000 more young people on the voter’s list for <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-local-polls-a-rehearsal-for-federal-elections/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">federal and provincial elections</a> on 20 November.Balen Shah’s historic swearing-in ceremony, his first Kathmandu Metropolitan City council meeting being streamed live on social media, and his non-traditional methods of appealing to voters has brought a breath of fresh air. Independent mayors in Dharan and Dhangadi are also engaging in unconventional politics, notwithstanding a wholly unnecessary public spat between Balen Shah and his Dharan counterpart, Harka Sampang.All this has brought a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/kathmandus-balen-phenomenon/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">paradigm shift</a> in the way younger Nepalis perceive politicians, and perhaps even convincing those with no interest in politics to<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/nepals-alt-right-falls-off-the-map/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> sit up and take notice</a>.Although the right to vote may seem straightforward in a country that prides itself on its democracy and new Constitution, it is tragic that the same old and vicious cycle of elections, disillusionment and instability has continued.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131128/637234a99c7e80680e0c4946jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="890" height="604"><figcaption>Balen Shah taking a selfie with a supporter during his campaign in May 2022. Photo: BINAY CREATION PHOTOGRAPHY</figcaption></figure><a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/snowbalen/">Public disenchantment</a> with figures in the incumbent coalition government is high. Driven by blatant corruption in high places, the same old politicians are angling for top posts over and over again, a prime minister who held the post <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/deuba-5/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">five times before</a> wants to continue holding on to it and is making murky backroom deals to rotate the office with his coalition partner.The fact that turnouts in Nepal’s elections are still high means that there is hope for change. Turnout figures used to be nearly 80% in the 1990s after the restoration of multi-party democracy and has been going down, but it was still a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepalis-vote-enthusiastically-in-local-elections/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">respectable 65% in May</a>.A substantial number of those who <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/what-goes-on-in-nepals-elections/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cast their votes in May</a>, at least in urban areas, showed a shift away from traditional candidates from mainstream parties and their ineptitude and broken promises. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/after-balen-the-rabi-phenomenon/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">This trend</a> has not yet reached critical mass, but it could gain traction in November – especially if the governing coalition fields tainted candidates.The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/rise-of-the-independents/">rise of the independents</a> in Nepal is not a coincidence, it is change waiting to unfold. It is what has given hope to hundreds of thousands of young idealist Nepalis that they can be agents of reform. They have never cared about party-loyalty or twisted politics, but are more concerned with everyday issues like jobs, educational reform and affordable healthcare.Be it in Dharan, Dhangadi or Kathmandu, the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-local-election-gives-power-back-to-people/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">local election</a> results demonstrated that Nepali politics is evolving so fast that it is leaving the old men who dominated it far behind.It is not the strongest that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change, Darwin postulated. This seems to hold true not just for biological evolution but in politics too. It is not the survival of the fittest, but the most promising ones.Just as a species will perish once they become incapable of adapting, if elections do the job they are designed to, then parties, politicians and legislators will become extinct as soon as they can no longer deliver the goods.As difficult as it may seem at the moment for candidates to attract the youth to support them, there is also opportunity if their campaign strategy is adjusted.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131128/637234ac9c7e80680e0c4947jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="4096" height="2730"><figcaption>Citizens in Kathmandu protesting the government’s poor handling of the COVID-19 crisis, lack of transparency and corruption in June 2020. Photo: MONIKA DEUPALA.</figcaption></figure>It could be easier said than done, since we have seen how elders of the major parties feel threatened by even their own younger colleagues. Regardless of how idealist the younger crop of leaders are, there will always be someone to put hurdles in their way.There are many examples of young, charismatic and energetic leaders being elected in countries like New Zealand, Finland, and elsewhere. We have seen the rise of the Aam Admi Party as such a powerful force in India that even the ruling BJP feels threatened by its popularity. And Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew showed that one does not even need full democracy to guarantee accountability, performance is enough.In any functioning democracy, a candidate needs voter support. While it may have been easy for parties to make wild promises in their manifestos in the past, they need to be more convincing now. Clever speeches and orations <a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/sanitizegovernment/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">will not suffice.</a>Nepal’s near-future will be determined by the November polls. It is an election that will affect the next generation of Nepalis, which is why new and young voters must make their presence and choices felt. The days of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/volatile-mix-of-politics-and-religion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">blind-support and vote banks</a> to keep corrupt leaders in power are gone.Our support will go to those who can convince us that they will perform until the very end of their term. The leaders we are looking for are the ones who walk the talk, will plan our energy future so we tackle not just our trade deficit but reduce Nepal’s carbon footprint.The oldsters in the old parties may take their younger colleagues and independent candidates as a threat. But it is also an opportunity for them to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/clean-up-elections-to-clean-up-politics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reform themselves</a> before it is too late.Yugottam Koirala is a student at St Xavier’s College, Kathmandu, and will miss being of voting age by a few months this November.

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Nepal’s Gen Next Election

<figure><img width="2316" height="3240" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/637218709c7e80680e0baa41jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Illustration: SWORUP NHASIJU</figcaption></figure>With Nepalis distracted by slow vote-counting, the government sneaked in another petrol price hike to Rs170 per litre last week. Inflation is going up, as the economy goes down. To prevent depletion of foreign exchange reserves, the government restricted imports, but that has hit tax revenue.As local election results come out in slow motion, Nepalis face the hard reality of a full-blown economic crisis. There is animated debate among experts about whether Nepal will be next after Sri Lanka to witness a political upheaval.Sri Lanka’s new Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has taken over at a difficult time, and has warned that things will get worse before they get better. The country has run out of food, fuel and essentials.Some experts point out that Nepal does not have the heavy debt burden of Sri Lanka and the country’s relative underdevelopment protects it somewhat from global shocks.However, while Nepal’s disease may not yet be as severe as Sri Lanka's, the symptoms are the same. The country’s hard currency reserves can pay only for 6 months of imports. The balance of payments gap is Rs2.68 trillion — the widest ever. Inflation hit 7.28% in April.On top of this are Nepal’s chronic problems, such as the inability to spend the development budget. The market is cash strapped, banks face a liquidity crisis because of loans to unproductive sectors.All this is not sudden. It was decades in the making. Successive governments took the easy way out by selling the sweat of Nepali  workers in the Gulf to buy oil. They failed to invest in manufacturing and agriculture to create jobs at home, and instead ran the country on revenue from taxes on imports.What we see today is a cumulative result of historical governance failure. As these elections have shown, the political parties are stuck in the same cycle of illicit campaign finance leading to corruption and patronage.Few have given priority to raising living standards, creating jobs through sustainable investment, and economic reform. The result is the protest vote going to Balendra (Balen) Shah in Kathmandu, where those who bothered to vote thumbed their noses decisively at the established parties.The politician-bureaucrat-corporate nexus has entrenched rent-seeking and crony capitalism to turn Nepal into a kleptocracy. And instead of fixing structural problems the politico-bureaucracy is going for band-aid interventions.Two-thirds of Nepalis are dependent on agriculture, yet it is farmers who are migrating for work. The biggest expenditure item among Nepal's imports is food.  The reason for this state of affairs is the policy to send Nepalis of productive age abroad, instead of  investing in increased productivity at home.Banks and financial institutions chose to lend in quick-money sectors like import financing and real estate. This made the rich richer, and worsened Nepal's socio-economic inequities.At a time like this, politicians without a clue about the economy are setting policy and making ad hoc decisions. Finance Minister Janardan Sharma sacked the Central Bank Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari in the midst of this crisis.And despite the Supreme Court reinstating him, there is not a peep from Minister Sharma or his boss, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.The 5-party coalition is more interested in keeping its unity for forthcoming provincial and federal elections rather than solving the economic emergency.It must re-channel investment to select production-oriented sectors to create jobs. Prioritising agriculture would immediately reduce imports in the next crop cycle. Reforming monetary policy should be at the top of the agenda.These are not medium or long-term goals, they must be done on a war-footing right away. Else we may soon see scenes like ones that unfolded on the streets of Colombo last week in Kathmandu as well.

Election Economy

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111124/637218069c7e80680e0baa1ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1062" height="830"/><figcaption>Balen campaigning in Kathmandu last week. Photo: BalenShah/Instagram</figcaption></figure>On Election Day on 13 May, I walked to a corner grocery store in my neighbourhood. The shopkeeper was all smiles as he showed me the blue dye on his left thumbnail. He had just voted for the rapper Balen Shah as Kathmandu’s new mayor.What made him reject all the other big name candidates: the opposition UML’s former mayor Keshab Sthapit, or Srijana Singh, the wife of Nepali Congress leader Prakash Man Singh and the common candidate of the ruling coalition? Was he disillusioned with the main parties?“Not really,” he replied. “I just like Balen. He talks sense.”More than anything else, Balen has won over even earlier skeptics with his passionate, no-nonsense talk, and his refusal to demean his rival candidates. “The others were busy hurling insults at each other, Balen has been above that, he just puts forward his ideas and plans for when he is elected,” the shopkeeper said.Read more: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/local-poll-national-impact/">Local poll, national impact</a>, Nepali TimesMany voters are enthusiastic about Balen’s clear-cut message that it is possible to make Kathmandu a livable and vibrant city. People in other municipalities say in social media posts that they wish they had a Balen, too. But even though the independent candidate has taken social media by storm, Nepal’s national press largely ignored him until his vote count started going up.It was clear in the days before voting that the ‘Balen Phenomenon’ was not just a social media frenzy. Even people known to have aligned with established parties said they voted for the rapper and activist.Nepalis seem to be looking to the future where there is a space for new ideas and new faces. But the media and the so-called intellectuals have long ignored this aspiration of citizens, tangling them in coverage of the blow-by-blow account of the power struggles between and within the main parties.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111124/637218089c7e80680e0baa1fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1174" height="586">Balen is surging ahead in the vote count, and things could still go in favour of Sthapit or Singh. But his strong showing suggests that not just the people of Kathmandu, but Nepalis in general would also have voted for alternative candidates given the choice.Initially, established parties saw the youth's inclination towards Balen as a mere aberration -- dismissing it as a fringe protest vote by young people who did not ‘understand politics’. It turns out young Nepalis do not really want to understand that brand of established politics.There is a cabal of mainstream politicians and journalists who have pre-defined ideas about who ‘understands politics’ and who does not. These are the very people who are ever ready to bring down any change seeker. Their world revolves around others like them, confined to echo chambers.Even the new crop of writers and intellectuals have not risen above this mindset. They are complacent just having their mug-shots on the op-ed pages, or their talking heads on the television studios in the world of you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch-yours.As long as the politics is confined to the opinions of this select few, it is not politics at all. It is a fraud on the Nepali people. Understanding the hypocrisy of leaders alone does not mean one has a good grasp of politics. Knowing and understanding policies that influence the lives of citizens is what counts, and anyone seeking real change has to be for this.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111124/6372180b9c7e80680e0baa20jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1122" height="900"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Seasoned commentators on social media, politicians and some in the media do not like this. Political parties are paranoid about new people in leadership roles who challenge their nepotism -- putting up wives, sons, daughters as mayoral candidates, or using ethnicity as a card.Since the 2006 People’s Movement, a new generation with modern thinking has emerged. Their needs and desires are far beyond the imagination of entrenched commentators who, along with politicians, benefit from perpetuating the status quo. This is why we have a five-time prime minister, and the same old faces in politics from 25 years ago.But they see the Balen Shah phenomenon as a threat, and are countering it as only they know how: by providing astrological proof that he will not win, or by abusing him on Twitter.  This is all they know how to do, ‘leaders’ who have come to power by beheading people and sacrificing the innocent, this is how they define ‘revolution’.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/every-vote-counts/">Every vote counts, as counting begins in Nepal</a>, Shristi KarkiUnfortunately, the ‘VIP’ media is in thrall of these obsolete leaders and their brand of politics. Editors who give space and airtime to them are supposed to be defending  democracy and the free press, but refuse to open their doors to pluralism and diversity.There is now a wide chasm between what media commentators predict versus what is actually happening on the ground. But that is the beauty of democracy. Citizens can now see what the media and commentators are missing or not reporting. They know who is not performing. They do not need the mainstream press anymore to form their opinion, and at election time they respond by backing someone like Balen Shah.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111124/6372180e9c7e80680e0baa21jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1068" height="838"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Most media commentators are frozen in time, and cannot embrace the hope of tomorrow. Time is running out for Nepal, and there is no time to play the same old tricks on the people.Many ‘VIP' commentators did not give Balen’s candidacy much credence at first. We could see that they were propagating their tired old reasonings to support limited politics.When they did mention Balen, it was to put him down by calling him a ‘singer boy’, ‘the guy in shades’, or criticising him for draping himself in the Nepali flag while campaigning.They never commended him for the charity work he did in feeding the destitute during the 2020 lockdowns. They air-brushed his engineering background, and activist role in heritage conservation and solid waste management. But he refused to stoop as low as his opponents to engage in name-calling and sleazy campaigning. So, the VIPs of the media dismissed him, they saw no political future for his candidacy.Balen also exposed ‘youth’ leaders of mainstream parties for behaving just like the generation ahead of them who are responsible for ruining the country. Take Ram Kumari Jhankri of the CPN-US who struts on stage like a diva, does not bother to thank the thousands who have gathered, takes off her jacket and throws it at the audience as if she is some rock star.The other ‘young turk’ who appears to be too busy riding the media wave and being loyal to his party bosses to care about what the people really want is Gagan Thapa of the Nepali Congress. We do not hear much about the change and reforms demanded by society from him anymore. He is too busy insulting the other side.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111124/637218119c7e80680e0baa22jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1062" height="870"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Traditional leaders and their youth emulators should have learnt by now that voters are sick of their games. Even the parties that called themselves ‘alternative’ provide no alternative — they have spent the entire campaign running down rivals.Balen has learnt from everyone else’s mis-steps. He did not even bother to reply to candidates who abused him in the hustings. This convinced voters young and old that he is different, and even those initially skeptical of him seem to have changed their minds.Conventional media commentators have not been able to quite decide what to make of Citizen Balen. The 32-year-old rapper, structural engineer and activist is difficult to pigeonhole, but there is no denying his charisma and commitment for change.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111124/637218149c7e80680e0baa23jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="890" height="604"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>When they did deign to take notice of the rapper, they dismissed his popularity as an offshoot of the dramatic success of the Bibeksheel and Sajha parties in the 2017 local elections in Kathmandu — comparing the ‘Balen craze’ to the Ranju Darshana phenomenon.But Balen and Ranju are different. Five years ago, voters in Kathmandu were attracted to a fresh young female candidate because she was such a departure from the established parties. The media could not project her enough — even commenting on the colour of her sari (blue) when she attended an unofficial reception.This time, the mainstream press largely ignored Balen before the election. But due to his meteoric rise in social media, Balen started shining so brightly that editors have now been forced to take notice.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111124/637218179c7e80680e0baa24jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1932" height="1058"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Balen is not a media product, this is a spontaneous outburst of outrage against established politicians and their neglect of the people’s needs -- especially those who led Kathmandu Metropolitan City for the past five years. Voters liked what they saw in this young bearded candidate in shades who spoke in a dignified tone, with authority based on his own experience and research, and was not afraid to take on the dominant dinosaurs of Nepali politics.Balen has inspired especially the young with his can-do ambition to make Kathmandu shine again. He has given them hope, when others spread cynicism and negativity. He is a river trying to drain the putrid swamp of Kathmandu’s politics. All the columnists with their scripted sentences now need to prepare themselves to be proven wrong.The Balen Phenomenon has exposed the gulf between the mainstream media and Nepali society. The press is made up of a handful of people, and a handful of people own it. Balen’s generation has no time for them, and the media they control.There is a raw new message going out: Nepalis have to forge ahead on their own and no longer rely on the mainstream parties and media that never reflected their hopes and aspirations.There is a hurricane on the horizon that will soon blow away the dominance of the few men who control politics, society and information.Read more: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/election-infowar-goes-digital/">Election infowar goes digital</a>, Ramesh Kumar

Kathmandu’s ‘Balen Phenomenon’

<figure><img width="960" height="541" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111124/637217f09c7e80680e0baa15jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Flags of rival parties UML and Nepali Congress as seen from my family home in Syangja. All photos: SHRISTI KARKI</figcaption></figure>Earlier this year, I visited my ward office to inquire about voter registration, and was informed that I would need to register either from the Election Commission or the Kathmandu District Election office.My parents had got their registration from the ward office in 2017 since my family had moved to Kathmandu. I went to the Kathmandu Election Office, and filled the voter registration with details of my current address. But the election official told me that voters would need to cast their ballot from the district their citizenship card has been issued from— which in my case is Syangja, the district where my father was born and raised. I explained to the election officer that both my parents had voted from Kathmandu during the last election. He said that was well and good, but an Act was passed after 2017 that allowed voters to cast their ballots only from where their citizenship cards were issued. If I was to vote here, the election official said, I would need proof of migration. I called my father to discuss developments. He told me it looked like I was going to Syangja to vote. ***** <figure><img width="960" height="720" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111124/637217f39c7e80680e0baa16jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="960" height="720" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111124/637217f59c7e80680e0baa17jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>A day before the election, preparations are underway (pictured above) at Shitala Secondary School which will serve as one of the three polling stations in the village.My memories of my village are not the clearest, since we visited Syangja only once or twice a year for weeks at a time. After my grandfather passed, my grandmother came to live with us in the city, and even those occasional visits stopped. In any case, I have not been to my village since 2018. In the months leading up to the election, I saw candidates from across Nepal in the media. My friends and I discussed the election in Kathmandu. I reported about the election in Bharatpur, in Pokhara. But no such news came out of my ward in Syangja. As the election draws near, I do as much homework as I can, check the candidates’ list, try to get some information on them, but I wonder if that will make any difference.***** <figure><img width="960" height="720" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111124/637217f79c7e80680e0baa18jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="960" height="720" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111124/637217fa9c7e80680e0baa19jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="960" height="720" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111124/637217fd9c7e80680e0baa1ajpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="960" height="720" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111124/637217ff9c7e80680e0baa1bjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="960" height="720" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111124/637218019c7e80680e0baa1cjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>I leave for Syangja two days before the election, arriving in Pokhara in the morning. In the jeep from Pokhara to home, the passengers discuss the election— mostly why the incumbents were incompetent.The previous ward chair had built a water system in the village, they say, but no water actually flowed out of the taps. “Maybe that’s the agenda the party has set for if they win this time, filling the taps,” one of the passengers jokes. The vehicle breaks into laughter.Forty-five minutes later, I arrive home, and bid my fellow passengers goodbye. When I reach the house, I immediately see the party flag my uncle has erected in his vegetable garden. But down the hill in his brother’s house—I can see the rival party’s flag fluttering in the wind.I say hello to my aunt, my cousins. Over lunch, my uncle talks about the rallies that took place until the day before, about how hoards of motorbikes from the two competing parties roared past, screaming slogans. It was now the 'silent period' before the election, and campaigning had stopped. In the evening, I prepare to go down to visit my relatives, many of whom I haven’t seen in years. “Take your sister with you,” my uncle tells me, pointing to his daughter. The grown ups will not visit each other’s place right now. In the twilight, my cousin and I make the rounds of our relatives’ houses. Nobody talks about the election. ***** <figure><img width="960" height="720" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111124/637218039c7e80680e0baa1djpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The day before voting, I make my way down to the polling centre, one of three in the village, to get my voter’s ID card. This was the school my father and his siblings attended as children, and workers are busy preparing for the next day.I am hoping to see ward chair candidates of the two main parties to interview them, but I’m informed that both of them have gone into town, and will not be back anytime soon. “People have come all the way from Kathmandu, all for one vote,” someone comments as I pass by their house on my way back. There are 2,715 voters in this ward. I figure every vote will count. *****I walk down to the voting centre after lunch on Election Day. It is crowded, but just as many people are gathered outside in the mid-morning sun, watching the goings-on. Most of those in the polling centre are women.  The men have already voted in the morning. The heat wraps around the back of my neck as I stand in line, my back is soaked in sweat. The voter behind me has her arm wrapped around my shoulder. I have never seen her before. The voters in front of me have already made friends with the temporary police stationed at the front of the line. They complain about having to leave their umbrellas at the gate of the polling centre. The masked policemen, clad in their full-sleeved dark blue uniforms and leather boots, shrug their shoulders. “I don’t make the rules,” one of them says.Just then, a man calls over a young woman he knows to the front of the women’s line, leading to instant uproar. A policeman directs the woman to go to the end of the line to which the man replies with not to tell him what to do. “It’s the heat,” someone in line says. “We all need to calm down.”The line finally moves, and I make my way to the relative cool of the tented area where voting officials check and double-check our IDs, and hand us the ballots. Someone behind me has come to vote with her citizenship certificate, but her name is not on the voter’s list. There is a murmur of sympathy. She gives a rueful smile and leaves.As we wait in line in front of the voting booths, an elderly woman some ways behind me is asking how to correctly vote and fold the ballot. We show her how, and she squats right down and begins smoothing the paper over the uneven ground.“I’m going to fold this beforehand, just in case I do it wrong in there,” she says. Our laughter carries in the air.   At my turn, I cast my vote and make my way out of the polling centre.On the way back, the women behind me are asking each other in hushed tones,  ‘के मा छाप हानेउ त?’ (Whom did you vote for?). It reminds me of when I was a student, sharing answers with my friends on the way back from the exam hall. It starts raining in the afternoon, and the downpour continues throughout the day. Later, the lights wink out. No one knows when the power will come back. At the dinner table, my two young cousins who do not yet vote discuss the election. My brother is especially keen to know whom I have voted for. “The candidates must be so stressed right now,” my sister says. “They probably won’t sleep until the results are announced.”*****By the next morning, the rain has stopped and the power restored.  Another one of my uncles comes by to visit his brother, along with a neighbour. Devi Karki, a candidate who ran for ward member, is there as well. The four get into a conversation about the other wards in the municipality, the vote counts of which are underway.They talk about who should have ran instead of who, and who is likely to win. They support different parties, but the discussion is objective.There is word that the ballots of this ward will begin to be counted at 3PM. In this village, where 1,990 out of all eligible voters cast their ballots, every vote will count when counting starts."I slept really well last night,” Karki says, “I sleep best when I am worried.”The foursome finish their tea, and Devi Karki calls out to my aunt to get her sickle and get a move on. The time for discussion is over— there is work to be done, livestock to be fed.The two women head down to the fields. From the courtyard I look down the hill, wondering when enough time will have passed that my family can drop by each other’s houses.Read Also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepalis-vote-enthusiastically-in-local-elections/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepalis vote enthusiastically in local elections</a>

Shristi Karki

Every vote counts, as counting begins in Nepal

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111124/6372176f9c7e80680e0ba9e8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640"/><figcaption>Photo: NEPALI TIMES ARCHIVE</figcaption></figure>Nepalis across the country <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-goes-to-the-polls/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">vote on Friday</a> the 13th for municipal and ward councils, but its outcome may decide the fate of the governing coalition in Kathmandu.Two mayoral races in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/coalition-calculation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bharatpur</a> and Pokhara are going to be especially crucial, and will test the durability of the 5-party syndicate that has been running the country since Prime Minister K P Oil of the UML was outvoted in Parliament last year.The coalition is made up of strange bedfellows: the centre right Nepali Congress (NC) with the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist-Centre), Communist Party of Nepal Unified Socialists (US), as well as the Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP) and the smaller Rastriya Janamorcha.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-goes-to-the-polls/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepal goes to the polls</a>, Shristi KarkiUnity is fraying within this <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/coalition-collision/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fragile coalition</a>, and the need to field common candidates has not just widened the rift between partners, but also within the parties themselves.Even though the coalition agreed not to compete against each other and divided up the country’s 753 municipalities among themselves, in only one-third of them does it actually have common candidates.Final results of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/turning-a-new-leaf-in-2079/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">local elections</a> will take at least a week, but it is clear that the outcome will be a referendum on national and provincial elections in November, and even on whether the coalition will remain intact.The future of the coalition seems to rest on voting results mainly in Bharatpur, Pokhara, Kathmandu, Biratnagar and Dadeldhura. Even among these, it will be Bharatpur and Pokhara that will be decisive.In Bharatpur, Maoist chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal has staked all for the candidacy of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2017/06/04/bharatpur-repoll-condemned/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">his daughter, Renu,</a> the incumbent mayor. The local mayoral aspirant Jagannath Poudel from the NC is up in arms — not so much against the Maoists, but against his own party that tried to force him to withdraw.Poudel refused, the NC expelled him, and now he is standing as an independent. Last week, coalition leaders including Prime Minister Deuba and Dahal addressed a campaign rally in Bharatpur in which Dahal went as far as to say that the country was “headed towards disaster” if his daughter was not elected. In Pokhara, the common coalition candidate is the CPN-US’s Dhanraj Acharya, after Deuba managed to convince his party's Bimal Bahadur Karki to withdraw. But many NC supporters are campaigning against Acharya in favour of the UML candidate.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-goes-to-the-polls/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">"We are treated like ATMs"</a>, Hoang ChuIn Biratnagar, the coalition’s candidate is JSP chair Upendra Yadav’s son Amarendra Yadav, and this has got local NC supporters all worked up in a city that has always been their party’s bastion.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/reward-performance/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Friday’s elections</a> have brought intense rivalries within and between coalition members out in the open, and this cannot be a pleasant sight for Deuba and Dahal.In fact, Dahal has already been hinting that he will blame the Congress if Maoist common candidates lose in key constituencies like Bharatpur. If the coalition candidates lose in a majority of municipalities, it is conceivable that the alliance will split and the Communist parties may coalesce for the next phase of elections.Watching the clash within the coalition rather gleefully from the sidelines is the UML. The opposition party would like nothing better than to eaxct revenge on the coalition by splitting it. The UML has also forged a partnership with the Hindu-right RPP and the Moonie-backed Family Party.Despite the names of the political parties, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/periphery-within-the-periphery-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">this election</a> is not an ideological contest between the left and right. It is not even about evaluating the performance of the party candidates for the last five years, and questioning the decentralisation of corruption to local governments. In fact, it has become an exercise in selecting the best among the worst candidates.For the UML, this election is not about furthering its electoral agenda but defeating Maoist and CPN-US candidates in as many municipalities as possible. And vice versa for the Maoists and CPN-US.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/battle-lines-drawn-for-nepal-elections/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rajendra Linden of the RPP</a> is going all out to weaken Kamal Thapa’s RPP Nepal, and the JSP would like nothing better than to oust Mahanta Thakur’s LSP.This local election is therefore more about defeating rivals within parties or those who have defected, than about issues like making Nepal’s cities, towns and villages more liveable. And this makes a mockery of the electoral process in a democracy.Santa Gaha Magar

Local poll, national impact

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111124/6372176b9c7e80680e0ba9e7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1800" height="1200"/><figcaption>A mayor candidate in Bajura district's Budhiganga municipality asks an elderly for a vote during a home visit ahead of elections on 13 May. Photo: PREM RAILE/RSS</figcaption></figure>Campaigning for his daughter <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/coalition-calculation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Renu Dahal in Bharatpur</a> last week, Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal warned that if she did not win, Nepal would plunge into crisis.Over in Dadeldhura, Arzu Rana, the wife of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, told an election rally that she would withhold the budget for any municipality that did not vote in a Nepali Congress mayor.The fact that two powerful members of the ruling coalition in Nepal have taken to threatening voters has been taken as an indication of their frustration with their <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/coalition-collision/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">inability to ensure that the alliance field common candidates</a> for the 13 May local elections.“If you vote for Renu Dahal, I will personally ensure that this coalition lasts for the next 20 years. If not, the country is headed to disaster,” Dahal said in Bharatpur on 5 May.Renu Dahal is the coalition-backed candidate in Bharatpur, and her running mate is from the Nepali Congress (NC).Chitwan is a NC stronghold, and <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/madi-bus-bomb-blast-nine-years-later,1474" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">many in the district directly suffered</a> at the hands of the Maoists during the insurgency, including families who fled the conflict in the mountains. Now, families of those who were killed, disappeared, or injured in the war are being forced to vote for the party that perpetrated those crimes.Prime Minister Deuba failed to convince his party’s mayoral candidate Jagannath Poudel to step down and support <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2017/06/04/bharatpur-repoll-condemned/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Renu Dahal</a>. Poudel has been expelled from the party and is now running as an independent.Dadeldhura also has a rebel mayoral candidate. The NC expelled Karna Bahadur Malla for refusing to make way for a coalition-backed common candidate and forming an alliance with the opposition UML.Fear of political retribution seems to have influenced some NC candidates from running as independents against their own party.Bimal Bahadur Karki in Pokhara withdrew his candidacy for mayor in support of the coalition’s CPN Unified Socialist candidate Dhanraj Acharya and his NC running mate Kopila Ranabhat.Prime Minister Deuba’s attempts to appease his coalition partners has widened the rift within the NC between him and senior leaders like Shekhar Koirala, who had been against an electoral alliance, calling the expulsion of popular NC candidates as “political assassinations”.Maoist leader Dahal throwing his entire political weight behind his daughter’s constituency in Bharatpur has also not sat well within his party.In fact, the outcome of the mayoral races in Bharatpur, Pokhara and Dadeldhura will have far-reaching consequences for provincial and federal elections in November, and may even lead to the breakup of the coalition.In Kathmandu, the UML’s Keshav Sthapit is standing for mayor again despite <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/theytoo/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">multiple allegations of sexual harassment</a> during his previous tenure. Ironically, his running mate is 29-year old former Miss Newa Sunita Dangol.The coalition’s common candidate in Kathmandu is Srijana Singh, wife of NC leader Prakash Man Singh who is himself the scion of Congress stalwart Ganesh Man Singh.The Bibeksheel Sajha Party is hoping to repeat its strong showing in 2017 before the two alternative parties merged. Its candidate is lawyer Samikchya Baskota, but her chances could be affected by party chair Rabindra Mishra’s <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/feudalism-to-federalism/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pro-monarchy and anti-federalism stance</a>.Trying to cash in on disillusioned Bibeksheel Sajha supporters from 2017 is 30-year old engineer and rapper Balen Shah who is standing as an independent and is expected to carry the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/turning-a-new-leaf-in-2079/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">youth swing vote</a>. His campaign through social media has brought out young Nepalis into the streets in droves.A total of 14,074,424 Nepalis registered to vote in local elections in 2017, and turnout was 73.8%. This time, there are 17,733,726 registered voters.Even as Nepalis prepare to go to the polls, some 4 million Nepalis living and working abroad will not be allowed to cast absentee ballots despite a Supreme Court ruling in 2018.“At a time when frustration towards politics is at an all time high regardless of where Nepalis are based, it is a pity that those of us abroad cannot channel our frustration through the ballot box,” wrote Tilu Sharma, a Nepali migrant worker in Qatar, in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/our-notes-count-but-our-votes-dont/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a recent instalment of Diaspora Diaries</a> in Nepali Times. “ Our notes count, but our votes don’t.”Friday’s turnout may also be affected by voters being required to travel to their home districts to cast their ballots. Many young voters who live in cities but got their citizenship certificates from the districts may be unwilling to make long journeys just to vote.The future of Nepal’s local governments, and even the survival of the ruling coalition, is in the hands of voters as they head to polling booths across the country on Friday.

Nepal goes to the polls

<figure><img width="800" height="464" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111148/63721d599c7e80680e0bd4e3jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Stone quarry in Lalitpur's Tikabhairav. All photos: SAGAR BUDHATHOKI</figcaption></figure>Konjyosom Rural Municpality is just 30km south of the Ring Road, but it might as well be the remotest village in the mountains of far-western Nepal.Schools are dilapidated, the health post has no staff. Despite its proximity to the capital, Southern Lalitpur’s development indicators are much lower than the national average.Jets fly overhead one after another on their final approach into Kathmandu airport, but here on the ground the road disappears in a pall of dust. In the rainy season the road is so muddy it is safer just to walk. “We have a choice of breathing dust or being knee-deep in mud, it takes nearly four hours to reach the city,” says resident Pitambar Humagain, pointing out into the haze in the general direction of Kathmandu.There is just one health post, but it has no doctor and no equipment. It has no patients either — they have to be carried to Patan Hospital for even minor ailments. Schools are in such a poor state that parents have migrated to the city so their children get a proper education. The villages are emptying, more than 150 families from just Sankhu village have moved out in recent years, leaving locked up houses and fallow terrace fields.“Life is so difficult, there are no jobs and we are not educated, so families are migrating out because they do not want their children to suffer the same fate,” says Manju Ghimire, weeding her maize patch.Fifteen years ago, the only school in the village of Silinge had 65 students in a primary class. Now, there are barely 30 elementary school students and only two teachers. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/periphery-within-the-periphery-in-nepal/">Periphery within the periphery in Nepal</a>, Kunda Dixit <figure><img width="1488" height="2000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111148/63721d5c9c7e80680e0bd4e4jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>“There is no future for the children here,” adds Silinge local Suresh Tamang “Elected officials have not shown any interest in the past five years to improve education and health facilities.”Indeed, despite local elections being less than a month away, Konjyosom’s villagers do not have much hope that it will change anything. In fact the candidates for mayor and chairs are in the city, and are not even campaigning in their constituencies.Since the 2017 election, the municipal council has built just one trail bridge, and the budget allocated to blacktop 14 km from Ikudol to Dahchok has vanished without trace. Guruprasad Gautam of Bhatte Danda shakes his head in disgust: “Candidates buy their election tickets from the party leadership, and when elected they bulldoze the whole village to the ground.”Indeed, the rural municipalities of southern Lalitpur have become notorious for elected businessmen who have awarded themselves quarry and sand-mining contracts, allowed mountains to be carved for housing colonies and built random roads that have scarred the slopes.Rampant ‘plotting’ has destroyed the landscape of scenic Lele Valley and Godavari. Community forests have been privatised under the guise of ‘road expansion’. All this has disturbed drainage on the slopes, and springs have gone dry.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-struggles-to-balance-nature-and-industry/">Nepal struggles to balance nature and industry</a>, Ramesh Kumar <figure><img width="1242" height="931" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111148/63721d609c7e80680e0bd4e5jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Illegal quarries in Godavari have increased the danger of landslides and worsened air quality. Locals whisper about the ‘sand mafia’ working in collusion with local officials.“Local dons have so much influence they now have got permission to mine river boulders and their crushers have made our community unliveable,” complains Subhash Bista, holding a cloth to his face. “At this rate, southern Lalitpur will be buried in landslides.”It is not just the rural outskirts of Lalitpur that have suffered in the past five years. The historic city of Patan itself is over-run with unplanned construction. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-local-election-gives-power-back-to-people/">Nepal’s local election gives power back to people,</a> Rabin Giri <figure><img width="960" height="720" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111148/63721d629c7e80680e0bd4e6jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Gone are the charms of the quaint alleys, and multi-story concrete buildings now block the sky. Some of Patan’s ancient stone spouts and monuments destroyed in the earthquake have been restored, but many ponds have been built over.“There are no public parks for children, no open spaces and greenery at all,” says Kupondole resident Pradip Baidya. “There is only dust and traffic.” Lalitpur district has one metropolis, two municipalities and three rural municipalities, and they all share common concerns which should have been addressed by <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/think-nationally-vote-locally/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">local governments</a> in the past five years. Still, incumbent mayors, chairs and council members want to run for office again. One of them is Lalitpur Metropolis mayor Chiribabu Maharjan of the Nepali Congress, who promises to continue the work he started to build a ‘bicycle city’ and a ‘smart eco-friendly metropolis’. “We have made progress in the last five years, but there is still a lot to be done,” he admits.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/local-government-by-the-people-for-the-people-of-the-people/">Local government by the people, for the people, of the people</a>, Ramesh Kumar <figure><img width="2000" height="1500" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111148/63721d659c7e80680e0bd4e7jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Deputy mayor Geeta Satyal wants Maharjan’s post and is running for mayor. She says, “My five-year term as the deputy has given me the necessary experience and confidence to run for mayor.”Meanwhile, UML has already selected district central committee members Harikrishna Vyanjankar and Manjari Shrestha as mayoral and deputy mayoral candidates for Lalitpur.In Bagmati Rural Municipality, chair Bir Bahadur Lopchan is planning to run for the post again. But his deputy Ranjana Ghimire and ward-chair Bishnu Timilsina are also running for the mayor post.Mayor Rameswar Shrestha of Mahalaxmi Municipality boasts that he has fulfilled most of his 2017 campaign promises and spent 80% of his constituency’s budget on infrastructure. He is contesting again, but so are Ram Chandra Dahal and Kamala Tamang of the neighbouring Mahankal rural Municipality.As in other parts of Nepal, in Lalitpur too many elected officials are competing against members of their own parties as well as from the opposition. The list of hopefuls include runners-up of the 2017 state-assembly, joint secretaries and central committee members of local party chapters, as well as contractors, educators, and members of local financial institutions.Time is running out for elections on 13 May, and political parties are now unveiling their election strategies. The UML has said it will focus on delivery of health, education, employment, agriculture and infrastructure.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/power-to-the-periphery/">Power to the periphery</a>, Sonia Awale <figure><img width="2000" height="1500" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111148/63721d689c7e80680e0bd4e8jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The Maoist Centre has a similar platform, prioritising physical infrastructure, education and health. For Lalitpur, the Nepali Congress is set to focus on cultural and heritage preservation, traffic management and the environment. Even as many voters have become disillusioned with local government, many also want their concerns taken seriously this time. Keshav KC of Thecho wants his elected officials to stop illegal mining and improve roads that have been in a dilapidated condition for years.  Shiva Shrestha of Tikathali is concerned about air and water pollution, and wants a municipality head to solve those.  Rajesh Darlami of Bhatte Danda village wants the chronic lack of irrigation and fertiliser facilities as well as an efficient market delivery system of fresh produce. Pema Lama of Lakuri Bhanjyang expects his local leader to expand tourism in the area. “Better roads and other facilities to attract tourists would vastly benefit the local economy,” he says.Prakash Raut of Lamatar sees the need to control rampant use of excavators to level slopes in his neighbourhood for new housing colonies. “If unchecked plotting does not stop, there will be nothing but houses here in a few years,” he adds.Suraj Bajgain of Gotikhel wants elected candidates to improve health and education services so that people do not have to move to an expensive city, and live hand-to-mouth. Kishor Bista of Sunakothi believes that elected officials should be responsible for the preservation of local culture and heritage. “Our public spaces, community forests and heritage are disappearing. If we elected a representative who cared enough, we could preserve the beauty of this town for generations to come.”Read more: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/deputies-drive-development-in-rural-nepal/">Deputies drive development in rural Nepal</a>, Laxmi BasnetAdapted by Shristi Karki from the <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/129271" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/129271&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1650351029924000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1_sqekESyUPLZLn0ZGGTxq">Nepali original</a> in <a href="http://himalkhabar.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://himalkhabar.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1650351029924000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3Do8XIAI9gAf008ZBWdcRR">himalkhabar.com</a>

Thinking locally, acting locally

<img width="800" height="441" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111144/63721c219c7e80680e0bd479jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>Three days after the Nepali Congress (NC) Central Working Committee announced it would leave it up to its local committees to decide on candidates for local elections in May, the Maoist Center (MC) Chair Pushpa Kamal brought out his trump card: if the Congress did not agree on common candidates he would forge an alliance with the opposition UML.
Like a jilted partner in a love triangle, the Maoist Centre is playing the NC and UML against each other ahead of the 13 May<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/periphery-within-the-periphery-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> local elections</a>. In this, Chitwan is a microcosm of what is happening across Nepal — the Maoists are too weak to go it alone, some in the Congress do not want an electoral alliance with them, and despite its split the UML still has a strong party structure down to the grassroots.
Whenever he does not get what he wants from the NC, Dahal threatens to join hands with the UML’s K P Oli. It was a <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2017/12/09/the-rise-of-the-red/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2017/12/09/the-rise-of-the-red/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1649298501865000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3gag3_L8da5PSoGfs004EO">Maoist-UML alliance</a> that swept the 2017 federal election, and the two parties formally united to form the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) which got dismantled in 2021 by the Supreme Court after a prolonged power struggle between Oli and Dahal.
With local polls only a little more than a month away, coalition partners Nepali Congress, Maoists, Unified Socialist and the Janata Samajwadi Party met on Tuesday to try to decide on common candidates. But all five coalition members want different things to ensure maximum benefit for their own party.
An electoral alliance means coalition partners agree to jointly select <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/deputies-drive-development-in-rural-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">candidates</a> for mayors, municipality chairs and other positions so they do not cancel each other out. The NC thinks it can win a majority on its own. Dahal has boasted he can do the same, but his party needs the Congress more than the Congress needs him. But the Congress is also wary of the UML’s strength.

Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/think-nationally-vote-locally/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Think nationally, vote locally</a>, Editorial
Senior Congress leaders like Shekhar Koirala, who challenged Sher Bahadur Deuba for party chairmanship during the recent NC <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/tis-the-season-of-conventions-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">general convention</a>, have urged the prime minister against an electoral alliance. He wants local Congress leaders to have full authority to decide whether they choose to run independently, coordinate with coalition partners or with parties outside the governing alliance. 
In 2017, NC lost the key constituency of Pokhara, where the party’s candidate Ramji Kunwar lost the election to the UML candidate despite having formed an electoral alliance with the Maoists. This is why the Congress hierarchy is averse to partnering with the Maoists.  
Similarly, the UML and the Maoists had formed separate alliances against the Congress in Biratnagar local polls, but Congress candidates won both chair and deputy chair there in 2017. The Maoists allied with the UML against the Congress in Tanahun’s Byas Municipality, but the Congress still won both chair and deputy-chair.  
For the Maoists, any electoral alliance with any party is a means to an end. The 2017 election results indicate that while the Maoists would gain from an electoral alliance with the NC, Maoist support will not guarantee the Nepali Congress local wins. 

Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/all-politics-is-local/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">All politics is local</a>, Sahina Shrestha
One of these is Chitwan’s Bharatpur Metropolitan City. In 2017, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2017/07/17/metro-without-mayor/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2017/07/17/metro-without-mayor/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1649298501865000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0I-xEI6y3p20AgQQg8y0pd">Maoist supporters disrupted the vote counting</a> process, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2017/07/30/re-polling-in-ward-19/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2017/07/30/re-polling-in-ward-19/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1649298501865000&amp;usg=AOvVaw104ig7cwnP7s8S37QEKTuk">tearing up ballot papers </a>to secure the mayorship for Dahal’s daughter Renu Dahal with Congress support, who was the weaker candidate.
Many families who fled the Maoist insurgency in the mountains moved down and settled in Chitwan, and it is regarded as a Congress stronghold. Bharatpur, especially, has a strong Congress base and many there are not happy with their party leadership once again allowing Renu Dahal to win just because of coalition calculations in Kathmandu. The NC’s Chitwan committee decided on Sunday that it will go it alone to contest Bharatpur mayorship.  
It is an indication of just how opportunistic electoral alliances are that while the Maoists and Congress colluded to allow Renu Dahal to win Bharatpur in <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2017/05/14/all-politics-is-local/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2017/05/14/all-politics-is-local/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1649298501865000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2-vDW8RlGIzeX5LvObejYc" style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;">local elections in 2017</a>, the Maoists went on to partner with the UML for federal elections.  
Which is why what happens in Bharatpur during May’s local elections is so symbolic. If the Congress does not agree to the Maoists on an electoral alliance in Bharatpur, and the Maoists lose the city, the governing coalition will likely collapse. 
Ramji Dahal
Translated from the <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/129133" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/129133&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1649298501865000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1WIX4eZLmyPLoefdo_IYdq">Nepali original</a> in <a href="http://himalkhabar.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://himalkhabar.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1649298501865000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3q7IwfaIjcCe-QLq-NZAi-">himalkhabar.com</a> by Shristi Karki.

Coalition calculation

<figure><img width="2048" height="1536" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101144/63720e669c7e80680e0b7915jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Gita Adhikari giving sewing machines to women from the Muslim community.</figcaption></figure>Gita Adhikari, the deputy mayor of Damak, quit her job as assistant campus chief of Damak Multiple Campus when she was nominated by the UML to run in the 2017 local elections.  Adhikari says she will complete the reform work that she initiated by running for mayor in this <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/think-nationally-vote-locally/">May's elections</a>. “I am running for mayor this election,” says Adhikari, “There is no Plan B.” In Nepalganj, deputy mayor Uma Thapa Magar founded and has led a collective of deputy mayors and chairs from eight municipalities across Banke that meets regularly to facilitate interpersonal as well as district-wide cooperation between local representatives and bodies. “My five year term gives me the experience to run for mayor this time,” says Magar, who was a journalist before entering politics. Vice-chair Ekmaya BK, of Banke’s Khajura village is banking on voters to recognise her accomplishments during the election in May and vote her to the leadership position. “I am confident that my constituents who have closely followed my work will make the right decision at the polls,” says BK.Sarala Bolkhe of Bakaiya village in Makwanpur was elected vice-chair even as her running mate lost the chairmanship to their challengers, and is positive that she will be voted in as chairperson this time. <figure><img width="503" height="545" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101144/63720e6a9c7e80680e0b7916jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Meanwhile, Parvati Sunuwar, the vice-chairperson of Sindhuli’s Fikal rural Municipality who oversaw progress in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/birth-and-death-during-a-pandemic/">maternal health</a> as well as women’s participation in her village, is banking on residents to vote her in as chairperson after having unsuccessfully run for chairperson in 2017.A recent survey conducted by the <a href="https://tarangini.org.np/">Tarangini Foundation</a>, a women's rights training center, found that 80% of the 200 women holding deputy mayor and deputy chief positions want to run for the top position in the 2022 elections in May.These female local government representatives have been encouraged by the success of local government projects under their leadership, particularly ones that have focused on the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/women-leaders-set-example-for-rest-of-nepal/">socio-economic empowerment of women in their communities</a>, as well as the inclusion of underserved and vulnerable communities in local-level development.In Jhapa’s Damak, community schools are being adapted for female students and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/changing-disability-to-this-ability/">persons with disabilities</a>. A state level disability rehabilitation center is also in the works. Women in Damak have been trained in manufacturing Dhaka, while the local government prepares to create a market for the goods.Such work has been made easier because vice-chairs are in-charge of the local government’s budget committees. “A third of our budget is allocated for vulnerable groups, and we spend 22% of the earmarked funds for the socio-economic empowerment and awareness of women,” says deputy mayor Adhikari.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-local-governments-lead-from-the-front/">Nepal’s local governments lead from the front</a>, Masta KCIn Bajhang’s Thalara Rural Municipality, vice-chair Gangudevi Khadayat set about forming women’s groups across the village as soon as she was elected. "I personally attend the women’s group meetings so that I have a firsthand account of the problems that the women face,” Khadayat says. Some of residents of this municipality belonging to the Gandharva and Wadi communities had been involved in sex work, and several of them had been reduced to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/to-beg-borrow-of-steal/">begging</a>. Under Khadayat's leadership, more than 400 men from these communities are now daily wage workers, while women operate small businesses. The Chhau sheds where <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/that-time-of-the-month/">women are traditionally banished during menstruation</a> have also all been demolished.In Nuwakot’s Dupcheshwor village, vice-chair Anju Acharya formed women’s groups as soon as she was elected, conducting awareness programs as skill-based training to counter unemployment in her constituency.“We have begun to identify and involve members of the community in alternative forms of employment,” says Acharya. “The work may not be tangible as some of the bigger infrastructure projects, but the income and self-reliance this has afforded our community is tremendous.” <figure><img width="2048" height="1152" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101144/63720e6c9c7e80680e0b7917jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Jumla's Tila Rural Municipality has focused on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/covid-undermines-nepals-mother-child-gains/">maternal and child health</a>, collecting data on pregnant women and children up to two years old. Tila vice-chair Vishnu Budha, runs a program to provide nutritious food to pregnant women and winter clothes for children, and runs a 'nutrition message' program to make families aware of the services that the local government provides. The municipality provides incentives to families that have undergone permanent sterilisation after having one child, which has directly contributed to the decreasing numbers of children with malnutrition in the village.“We were also able to end the practice of Chhau after many awareness and discussion programs with male family members, as well as other local leaders and healers in the community,” explains Buda.One of the more significant achievements of local government in Nepal has been constitutionally mandated three-member Judicial Committees which has granted the power to local Deputy Chiefs who head the committees to resolve 13 types of civil and 11 other types of minor disputes through reconciliation without cases having to be taken to court.Read  also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/local-government-by-the-people-for-the-people-of-the-people/">Local government by the people, for the people, of the people</a>, Ramesh KumarIn Dhangadi, Deputy Mayor Sushila Mishra Bhatt played a significant role in introducing the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Policy 2020 before the federal government issued a similar nation-wide policy a few months later. Bhatta’s government has particularly focused on mobilising the judicial committee in her constituency. “The responsibility of our judicial committee is not just limited to sending petitions to court, but to serve those seeking justice who have been unable to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-transition-to-peace-needs-justice/">access Nepal’s judicial mechanism</a> in the first place,” says Bhatta. “Social and legal awareness and mobilisation are our top priority.”"We have spoken to many victims of domestic violence for hours—such calls and interactions often go on late into the night,” adds Dhangadi’s Deputy Chief Bhatta.These women-led judicial committees have been able to solve disagreements across the country, from settling land and financial disputes in Siraha to reconciling families on the verge of separation and divorce through counselling services in Bardia. They have also prevented child marriage in Panchthar and addressing domestic violence in Doti.Bhatta, the deputy mayor of Dhangadi, handles disputes in the Judicial Committee, monitors ongoing community projects every fiscal year, meets with dozens of other sub-committees, all the while participating in various state-level programs.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-women-envoys-make-a-mark/">Nepal’s women envoys make a mark</a>, Pratistha Rijal“Although they have had to juggle many responsibilities under the federal system, from solving disputes as heads of the judicial committees, Nepal’s women deputy mayors and chiefs have done an incredible job so far,” says Prabha Baral, head of the central women's department of the Nepal Municipal Association and mayor of Chitwan’s Rapti municipality. Across Nepal’s local levels, most women deputies are now sufficiently trained and equipped to lead their villages and municipalities. In 2017, most women were relegated to being a deputy because political parties were only looking to fulfill a requirement: to nominate token women either to the position of chair or deputy chair of the local governments. But this time, following their performance in the last five years, many women deputies now command the attention of both the political parties and voters in the lead up to the second local elections under the federal government on 13 May.Says National Assembly member Bimala Rai Paudyal: “Had our Constitution not made it mandatory for women to be involved in local governments, these important and impactful developments would have been limited to mere words on paper.”Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/women-moving-nepals-climate-activism/">Women moving Nepal’s climate activism</a>, Sewa BhattaraiJanmakanya Khatri, who was elected the vice-chair of Jumla’s Sinja Rural Municipality in 2017, is one of many locally-elected officials who has not had any formal education.“Girls were not sent to school when I was a child,” says Khatri, who travels across her village to spread awareness about the importance of educating women. “I have always felt that I would be respected more had I been able to read and write.”Sinja is among eight rural municipalities in Jumla. Along with Khatri, three other deputy chairs in the Kankasundari, Guthichaur and Patrasi deputy chairs have not received any formal education. Khatri says her inability to read and write has severely hampered her ability to do her job. “There have been many laws and policies made for the local level, but to me, those words on paper might as well be a foreign language,” she adds. What worries her most is making decisions and signing documents based on second-hand information, as others dictate important documents and directives. Khatri is constantly plagued by worry over whether she has made sound decisions.Khatri is adamant that educated women from Nepal’s rural communities be given the opportunity to run for political leadership in May.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/women-leaders-set-example-for-rest-of-nepal/">Women leaders set example for rest of Nepal</a>, Laxmi BasnetIn constituencies across Karnali and Madhes, local leaders who are unable to read and write have been hoodwinked by other parties.Advocate Indu Tuladhar, who has been working for the rights of Nepal’s locally elected officials, identifies illiteracy as the major reason that prevents elected officials from doing their jobs."There has long been debate about whether academic qualification should be a criteria for those who decide to run for office,” says Tuladhar. “ Nepal’s political parties require a deeper understanding of the role education plays in local governance.” Nunuta Rai and Krishnamaya Upadhyaya contributed to this report.Translated by Shristi Karki from the Nepali original published on Himalkhabar monthly. Read more: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/all-politics-is-local/">All politics is local</a>, Sahina Shrestha

Deputies drive development in rural Nepal

Local government by the people, for the people, of the people

The daily 10-hour curfew at Tribhuvan International Airport from 8 November that will last five months has affected tourism during Nepal’s peak season, with some hotels and trekking agencies here reporting cancellations into spring next year. The reduced hours at Nepal’s main aviation gateway till 31 March means that a third of all flights have been cut. This has also caused ticket prices to surge by up to eight times of normal fares. For example a Kathmandu-Delhi ticket that used to cost Rs12,000 is now listed at Rs50,000, and even then seats are not available.&nbsp; “Especially if they are here to trek, change in flight dates can cause tourists to miss their connections,” says Jagan Timilsina, who runs a trail running and outdoor education business. &nbsp; Pokhara is feeling the brunt as hotels report last-minute cancellations for November because of flight disorders. Some hoteliers also say although there have been some cancelled trips, most itineraries have been rescheduled.&nbsp; Hari Prasad Sharma Gaire of the local chapter of the Hotel Association of Nepal says the Kathmandu airport closure should have been timed for the off-season. He told us: “Starting construction during the peak tourist season was a mistake and will cause the tourism industry to lose a lot of business. The upgrade could have been spread out over a longer time but closed for fewer hours at night so that disruption was minimal.”&nbsp; Nearly a third of the 1.2 million tourists who visit Nepal annually come to Pokhara, which is also the gateway to Mustang, the Annapurna treks and pilgrimage tourism to Muktinath. Located by scenic lakes with a range of adventure sports like hot air ballooning, paragliding, canyoning, bungee and ziplines, Pokhara is also popular among diaspora Nepalis. “Besides its own attractions, Pokhara is really the hub for central Nepal, and we have been trying to get visitors to extend their stay here,” says Timilsina, who started out as a trekking porter and rose up the ranks to be an expedition guide and entrepreneur. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024111603114_0e071ce63ea9b0a9a7ee76f8c3cea0ff08c6767c41dd09f6bc4413d2db067a60.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024111603114_0e071ce63ea9b0a9a7ee76f8c3cea0ff08c6767c41dd09f6bc4413d2db067a60" data-rendition-name="original" width="3500" height="2333" loading="lazy" alt="Pokhara's tourism woes NT"> <figcaption>Tourist arrivals in Pokhara have slumped since the disruptions at Kathmandu airport due to upgrading work. Photo: KRISHNA MANI BARAL/NEPALI TIMES ARCHIVE</figcaption> </figure>  Even without the Kathmandu airport closure affecting tourist arrivals, Pokhara was already suffering from a decline due to many factors like the poor state of the Prithvi Highway, the shortage of luxury accommodation for high-end tourists, and the reluctance of international airlines to start direct flights to Pokhara despite an expensive new airport that was inaugurated two years ago.&nbsp; “There was a lot of initial excitement on the construction of the international airport,” says Timilsina, “but it hasn’t delivered as expected due to politics. People have invested in nearby businesses, and have faced losses.” India has blocked direct flights from its cities to Pokhara because the facility was built by a Chinese company. Although tourists and pilgrims from India hit record levels this year, the poor state of the highways and the Indian bus accident on the highway to Kathmandu in July that killed 27 pilgrims from Maharashtra state dampened arrival figures. Gaire says, “While tourist arrivals to Pokhara are now approaching pre-Covid levels, we haven’t seen the improvement we were expecting. We need a better marketing strategy. What are our embassies abroad doing?”&nbsp; Indeed, Pokhara used to be a favourite destination for Chinese tourists. There was a boom in arrivals from China before Covid, especially after a popular Chinese tv serial was shot on location here. But arrivals from China have not really recovered since the pandemic because of the economic slowdown there. Promoting Pokhara airport to handle direct flights from Chengdu or Kunming could revive Chinese arrivals.&nbsp; Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAAN) has used the Kathmandu airport closure as an excuse to arm-twist international airlines to start flying to Bhairawa, which has barely been in operation for two years since it was inaugurated. So far, Fly Dubai, Thai AirAsia, Jazeera and Qatar are flying to Bhairawa, but most use it as a hop before flying on to Kathmandu, which does not reduce congestion at Kathmandu.&nbsp; An ideal situation could have been to get Pokhara to run to full capacity while Kathmandu is partially out of action. Pokhara entrepreneurs are puzzled why the CAAN and the national government have not taken more interest in promoting Pokhara as an alternative to reduce the congestion in Kathmandu. Nepal’s football team that was flying to Dushanbe this week couldn’t get tickets via Delhi, and took a domestic flight to Bhadrapur, crossed over to Bagdogra and flew on to Delhi to catch their flight to Tajikistan.

Pokhara’s tourism woes

An excerpt of a conversation between an anthropologist and linguist Mark Turin, PhD and Lava Deo Awasthi, PhD, the first Chairperson of the Language Commission of Nepal. Nepali Times: What is the role of Nepal’s Language Commission and when was it formed? Lava Deo Awasthi: The Constitution of Nepal (2015) created a Language Commission (LC) with the following four core mandates: (a) to develop eligibility criteria for gaining status as an official language and offer recommendations to the Government of Nepal about the official language(s) in each province; (b) to offer recommendations to the Government about measures to be taken for the conservation, promotion, and development of languages; (c) to suggest possible ways of using mother tongues in education by assessing their stage of development; and, (d) to conduct studies, carry out research and perform monitoring functions about the response to the constitutional provisions for the federalisation of languages in Nepal. The Commission was founded in 2016 and I was appointed as the Chairperson of the Commission in September of the same year by the Cabinet of Ministers. What in your own professional and educational background helped to prepare you for the role? I have worked with the Government of Nepal for about 30 years, alongside holding teaching appointments at universities in Nepal. Prior to assuming the role of the Chairperson of the Commission, I served as permanent Secretary to the Government of Nepal and worked as the Chief Administrator of the Central Development Region. I was appointed as Director General of the Department of Education and completed my assignments as Joint Secretary at the Planning, Monitoring and Educational Administration Divisions of the Ministry of Education.&nbsp; In addition, I have taught courses as a visiting professor at Tribhuvan University and Kathmandu University for more than three decades. Later, I also started supervising MPhil and PhD students at the Far Western University in Mahendranagar, Kanchanpur. My PhD project from the Danish University of Education was dedicated to making sense of Nepal’s social construct and commitment to multilingualism, exploring the persistence of monolingual school practices in the face of constitutional promises and state commitments to multilingualism. I conducted a survey of Nepal’s languages and carried out a qualitative study of the Tharu language in the district of Bardia. I analysed language policy statements and explored classroom pedagogies in schools. I documented how teachers showed a tendency to resist change and maintain the status quo because they were not consulted when new educational language policies were introduced. Teachers also exhibited a deeply-held adherence to the Gurukul education system which appears to have been harnessed as a way to resist newer pedagogical ideologies imported from the West. Recognising how engrained these rich traditions of knowledge transmission are, I wanted to know how students’ engagement in the learning process appeared to have dwindled, creating a gap between children’s home languages and the language(s) of the school. Whilst statutory provisions for education in the mother tongue were oriented towards promotion, classroom pedagogies remained resolutely monolingual and exclusionary. The result was that multilingual education policies that had been introduced in Nepal did not result in meaningful changes in classroom practices. My research was also a reflection of childhood traumas I had experienced at the earliest stage of formal education. My home language, Baitadeli, has a strong oral tradition and no written literature. English is my fifth language in terms of exposure and competence, and my home district of Baitadi is well-known for its loyalty to the local language. I had to drop out of school after completing my sixth grade. Staying at home, I received much attention from my family and had much greater exposure to my native language, culture and environment. My overall impression is that dropping out of school had a surprisingly positive impact on my life. The opportunity offered a surprising dividend for me as I gained mastery in my mother tongue and received extensive exposure to folk literature and Indigenous knowledge and survival skills, cultivating my interest in language, culture, literature and local cosmologies.&nbsp; Now that I reflect on it, I appreciate how language has always played a key role in my life. I grew up in a multilingual environment: brought up with Baitadeli, Hindi, Sanskrit, Nepali and English. Language played a major part in my decision to leave school and my later success is closely linked to my competence in several languages. It was rewarding to be at home with my family as I deepened my understanding of native language and culture, which in turn helped me to harness and refine my art of living. Languages matter so much to me because they are both software and hardware. Later, when I was in secondary school, I realised that my command of my home language contributed significantly to enhancing my Nepali and English. I used my mother tongue as a form of linguistic capital to strengthen my competence in both English and Nepali.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024111811110_5400ba54792bf9e4854e1c1effde8bf09804e99647f23513700b450cc49adc4a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024111811110_5400ba54792bf9e4854e1c1effde8bf09804e99647f23513700b450cc49adc4a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="Dr Lava Deo Awasthi"> </figure>  In your term as the Commission’s first Chairperson, what were your strategic goals and objectives? My first strategic goal was to create an environment conducive to implementing the provisions of the Constitution of Nepal in relation to language. My priority was to prepare a detailed action plan for my six-year tenure in consultation with language stakeholders, including language experts, professionals, activists, Indigenous community members and representatives of relevant national and local-level institutions. The Commission formed a body of high-level advisors to ensure that the Chairperson’s work was well-informed and credible. The advisors to the committee had highly visible professional and social reputations in Nepal and had much experience in the field of language conservation, promotion, research and development. Another strategy we adopted was to establish close institutional linkages with federal, provincial, and local level governments for collecting opinions and disseminating information widely.&nbsp; What critical issues did you have to consider while discharging your duty? When Nepal’s new Constitution was drafted, a number of concerns could not be adequately addressed. These related to the conservation of languages, the recognition of official languages at the provincial level, and the use of mother tongues at federal, provincial, and local levels. These unresolved issues and matters pertaining to the federalizsation of Nepal’s languages were passed on to the Language Commission to address and resolve.&nbsp; Regarding the recommendations for official languages, a five-year timeline had been set by the Constitution. With great effort, we succeeded in having all provinces agree to recognise their official languages as per the recommendations of the Commission.&nbsp; What were your greatest achievements during your term? One of the greatest achievements was that we succeeded in setting a language agenda at all levels. Nepal’s language communities and other stakeholders expressed the view that this was the first time their languages were recognised and their voices heard by the state. People participated in debates and discussed issues relating to language that in all likelihood had never before happened in their lifetimes, at least not in ways that were supported by the state. We encouraged people to speak in their own language(s) and provided translators during plenary sessions and group discussions. Another major achievement was developing criteria for the status planning of languages at federal, provincial, and local levels, and to recommend 11 province-level official languages, in addition to the Nepali language. Similarly, a notable achievement was recognising Indigenous languages spoken by smaller communities, all of whom faced ongoing marginalisation and high levels of endangerment. The Commission identified 9 new languages that had not been reported in the 2011 census, and provided a framework for recognising official languages within a municipality. The commission emphasised the need for documentation and digitisation of languages for developing corpora and archives at national and sub-national levels.&nbsp; Languages of historical importance as well as classical languages were given recognition for their protection, growth, and development. Recommendations were made for the conservation, promotion and development of Nepal’s marginalised languages that are threatened by majority languages and for those languages that hold particular power at local and global levels. Recommendations were also made for how best to safeguard Nepal’s languages from the ever-growing spread of English and other powerful, globalising languages.&nbsp; A further important aspect of the Commission’s work was to emphasise mother tongue medium instruction in schools across the nation. Recognising the role of language in children’s cognitive, socio-emotional and academic development, the Commission suggested strategies for linking schools with ward-level language clusters for use in the classroom. The importance of nurturing and respecting a child’s first language was reiterated in the Commission’s recommendations for children’s learning and all-round development. By the end of my term, a remarkable change could be observed in terms of building trust within and across Nepal’s diverse language communities. A network of language groups and stakeholders across the country proved to be a powerful way of bringing all language communities under one roof for a collective review of and response to the process of federalising language policy. The many language stakeholders across Nepal appreciated the opportunity to work within a coordinated framework, and—feeling empowered by this—seemed genuinely enthusiastic about the initiatives taken by the Commission.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024111811114_b45297fdd2fedf17bdb6313e495a1062c0d87f1a19fa5349f871f220b75f93ab.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024111811114_b45297fdd2fedf17bdb6313e495a1062c0d87f1a19fa5349f871f220b75f93ab" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Dr Lava Deo Awasthi NT"> </figure>  What were the most significant challenges for you as Chairperson? One of the major challenges was winning people’s trust in advocating for the mission of the Language Commission. I faced considerable resistance as I sought to emphasise the use of native languages in families and communities. While the Commission advocated for multilingualism and promoted linguistic diversity, the prevailing policy circles and central level institutions had been deeply influenced by a one-language discourse and ideology of Nepali only. The spread of English also poses a huge threat to Nepal’s languages. However, people in power do not seem to see this as a problem. They tend to abandon their own languages in preference for English. The way that Nepal’s municipalities are increasingly introducing English as a medium of instruction at the earliest stage of a child’s school-based education has proven to be detrimental to their cognitive development, socio-emotional wellbeing and academic success. Most of Nepal’s elites have been heavily influenced by the spread of English and remain unaware about its impact on their home languages as well as on the inter-generational transmission of Indigenous languages in the country. I wish that we could have produced more compelling evidence to show the consequences of making poor policy choices for our children’s education. Demystification calls for a collective response. To make change happen across this entire, complex and federalising country was daunting work and left like a race against time. I feel that I could have done more to offer concrete examples in favour of using the mother tongue as a medium of children’s education at the earliest stages of a child’s education. What do you see the Language Commission achieving in the next 5-10 years? The Language Commission will have to ensure that all of its key recommendations are implemented at all levels of government. In 10 years’ time, all seven of Nepal’s provinces will have their official languages in place. These languages will also be recognised as languages of federal business, alongside Nepali. I anticipate that all official languages in the federal and provincial systems will have a national portal for inter-language corpora using machine translation to fulfil their federal, provincial and local level language functions, and that all languages spoken in Nepal will be represented through a digital database in the national archive. The Office of Statistics will monitor the status of Nepal’s languages over time. By the end of the next decade, each municipality in the country will have recognised one or two official languages at the local level, based on speech populations. Other local languages will have received community-level legal recognition and official status to fulfil their functional roles. Languages that are highly endangered or at risk will be entitled to receive state grants for enhancing local level capabilities to encourage families and young learners to speak the language. Incentive schemes will be introduced in municipalities that promote language within the family and at home. Inter-generational transmission of languages will have received welcome and timely attention across Nepal. It is my hope that all schools—public and private—will have introduced mother tongue medium instruction at the earliest stage of school education, at least up to class five. Nepali, English and other national as well as classical and foreign languages will be taught as subjects. The existing policy of English medium education at the early stage of education will be abolished. The Government of Nepal will be held accountable if the number of speakers of any language decreases or if local communities face language loss and greater endangerment. Under the aegis of the Language Commission, a Centre for Language Research and Innovation will be created with world-class facilities for language documentation and archiving in collaboration with Tribhuvan University’s Central Department of Linguistics and other relevant institutions. Harnessing the vastness of Nepal’s linguistic diversity, the Language Commission will morph into a centre of excellence for national and international communities to engage in collaborative language research, to share experiences and document best practices at in service of global linguistic diversity and Nepal’s many Indigenous languages.

Languages are both software and hardware

Nearly 750,000 Nepalis went abroad for employment in the past year, and more than 100,000 left on student visas. Most of them were young Nepali men and women, and the number has been increasing every year. As with other sections of society, Nepal’s security agencies also face a recruitment crisis. Nepal Police opened recruitment for 64 inspectors in September, and received 2,239 applications, compared to 2,718 candidates last year. Police also invited candidates for 256 assistant sub-inspectors this year for which it received 17,756 applications – down from 19,932 last year. It is the same story in the Nepal Army, the number of applicants for the post of Officer Cadet (Second Lieutenant) went down from 6,144 for 400 open seats in 2019 to 4,390 in 2020. Meanwhile, applicants in the paramilitary Armed Police Force went down from 857 applications for 75 posts in 2021 to 536 applicants for 99 posts last year. While the number of applicants appears higher than the demand, the data shows a significant decrease in applications for vacancies in Nepal’s law enforcement agencies. Security personnel are recruited on the basis of rank and age in Nepal, and the age cutoff for entry into Nepal’s security agencies is typically 25 years. Sociologist and migration expert Ganesh Gurung says that the demographic of young, physically fit Nepalis emigrating abroad in search of better opportunities has impacted recruitment into law enforcement and the military here at home. “The returns from working in Nepal’s police and army are minimal, whereas overseas job opportunities are more attractive,” Gurung says. “The work may be physically demanding abroad, but the pay is a lot higher.”  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241116041148_a7e477e0ee2f56acf16c2559fdb24d8f0377f7bc1f9e56138bc40108fc4fa33f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20241116041148_a7e477e0ee2f56acf16c2559fdb24d8f0377f7bc1f9e56138bc40108fc4fa33f" data-rendition-name="original" width="800" height="534" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal Police"><figcaption>Nepal Police</figcaption></figure>  Nepal Police spokesperson DIG Dan Bahadur Karki agrees that the physical and mental demands of a law enforcement job is incomparable to the income that security personnel earn. “A young Nepali who works in Dubai earns enough to build a home in the village within four years, while a Nepali with the same qualifications and physical ability in a security agency here barely makes enough to survive,” says Karki. “Obviously the youth prefer foreign employment.” Security agencies are now worried about the quality of inducted manpower. “There is a difference in work ethic between an applicant chosen from a competitive pool of 50 candidates versus one chosen from a pool of three candidates,” explains Gurung. “Unmotivated employees hamper the overall performance of the state apparatus.” Nepal Army spokesperson Brigadier General Gaurab Kumar KC says recruitment has not been hampered by outmigration: “We have still been getting more than three times the applicants than there are open posts, so we are not yet worried.” Even so, the passing rates of aspirants have gone down for security forces after the Public Service Commission began examinations for military recruitment in 2015. In fact, the Nepal Army complained about the Commission’s involvement in recruitment. Still, the number of vacant military posts tends to exceed the number of passing candidates. Nepal Army’s KC says that the military will not compromise on intake criteria even if there are fewer passing applicants. “Unqualified persons will not be admitted even if there are less-than-required passing candidates. We will re-advertise if that is the case.” But Nepal’s security forces now also have to worry about retention of existing personnel. About 900 Nepal Army, 600 Nepal Police, and 300 Armed police personnel resign every year before the completion of their tenure.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241116041148_b8cd62f70eea3aac7d3d3778615a5b70b1e20550c9bd76321f051f9c766fd2a9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241116041148_b8cd62f70eea3aac7d3d3778615a5b70b1e20550c9bd76321f051f9c766fd2a9" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="378" loading="lazy" alt="Armed police forces"><figcaption>Armed Police Force</figcaption></figure>  In 2020, Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa recalled almost 1,000 police personnel who had been deployed for the security of VIPs after long-standing criticism that security forces were being misused to cater to political and bureaucratic leadership. However, security personnel have continued to be assigned to high-ranking officials as glorified housekeepers. In December 2022, Rabi Lamichhane’s Home Ministry had instructed its offices to recall unauthorised security personnel assigned to high-ranking officials, following which 500 officers from Nepal Police and Armed Police Force were withdrawn from their details. But the Nepal Army does not have to follow such rules, and the practice of army personnel serving high-ranking active-duty and retired military personnel remains. Conditions here are dire enough that many active duty officers in Nepal’s military and police forces have chosen to leave their jobs to serve in the Russian Army to fight in the Ukraine war. The hierarchical culture and chain of command of politics, bureaucracy, law enforcement and military has also meant that abuse and mistreatment of subordinates is rife in Nepal’s security forces. “Feudalism is alive and well within our security institutions,” says Gurung. “When soldiers and security forces who swore to protect and serve the nation are made to be at the beck and call of politicians and bureaucrats, it is easy to understand why they are disillusioned with their jobs and why they choose to quit and find jobs abroad.”

Job insecurity in security forces

Earlier this month, Nepal received Rs1.6 billion from the World Bank as part of its <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/will-nepal-ever-be-paid-for-saving-trees">Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF)</a>, rewarding the country for increasing its carbon sink capacity. Nepal is the first in South Asia to benefit from this facility, and it is specifically to recompense the country for increasing forest cover in 13 Tarai districts between 2018-2024. “We are also trying to get another Rs13 billion from the facility while also preparing for free market-based carbon trading in the international market,” says Nabaraj Pudasaini of the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) Implementation Centre. Big emitters of greenhouse gases are under pressure to reduce their carbon emissions, and many have signed agreements to do so by investing in decarbonisation projects in developing countries. Countries that emit more than a specified amount of carbon would be able to buy emission rights from countries that emit less. Nepal is internationally known for its community forestry program which has been largely credited for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/tree-mendous">increasing tree cover to over 45%</a> in less than three decades. But this achievement had not been adequately recognised or rewarded internationally before. Forests, especially in the tropics, absorb and store large amounts of carbon while releasing oxygen in a process known as photosynthesis. <a href="https://www.fao.org/forest-resources-assessment/en/">Preventing deforestation</a> and increasing canopy cover is considered a much more achievable goal than reducing emission in the scale necessary to limit global average temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. COP11 in Montreal in 2005 first proposed reducing carbon emissions by improving forest quality by halting degradation. By 2015, a new mechanism of financial assistance was created to help less developed countries with sustainable management of forests <a href="https://www.un-redd.org/">(called REDD+)</a>. Under this new mechanism, countries receive aid based on their efforts to prevent forest degradation and increase carbon sink, and in 2021 the World Bank was entrusted with implementing it. Nepal’s FCPF receipt this month was calculated on the basis of 2.4 million tons of carbon stored at a rate of $5 per ton. In the second phase, Nepal will receive more than Rs4 billion within the next year for storing an additional 7 million tons of carbon. Eighty per cent of this amount obtained from carbon trading needs to be spent on local beneficiaries and indigenous communities.&nbsp; But carbon trading is not easy, Nepal needs to prove that protected forests will not be destroyed in future.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241121091132_c8a381c9a95aa86fec558951650d97bb87914741f01766982ba2b086af001f16.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241121091132_c8a381c9a95aa86fec558951650d97bb87914741f01766982ba2b086af001f16" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="999" loading="lazy" alt="Greenbacks for greenery NT "> <figcaption>Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption> </figure>  Explains carbon trading expert Yugan Manandhar. “Forests should be handed over to the community and shown that they are managed sustainably. Proving this will be particularly challenging; forest encroachment and degradation is rife in the Tarai.” <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/nepal-is-going-up-in-smoke">Deliberate forest fires</a> have also added to the challenge because they increase carbon emissions and reduce the sink capacity of forests. The basis for the amount that Nepal received was set five years ago by calculating the carbon reserves of forests in the 13 Tarai districts. In the meantime, sustainable forest management, tree plantation, forest destruction and erosion control were prioritised to increase carbon reserves in those forests. Nepal is signing another carbon trading agreement during the ongoing Baku climate conference. The <a href="https://www.leafcoalition.org/">Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest finance (LEAF Coalition) </a>proposes to sell the carbon stored in the forests of Bagmati, Gandaki and Lumbini provinces. For this, Nepal signed the letter of intent three years ago at COP26 in Glasgow. The target is to store 70 million tons of carbon in 32 million hectares of forest in the three provinces per which Nepal will receive Rs13 billion in four years at $10 per ton with provisions to increase the rate if various conditions are met. However, the agreement in itself doesn’t guarantee the amount. According to the targets set by Nepal, forest degradation should be stopped and carbon reserves increased by protecting tree cover. Preparations are also underway for clean air carbon trade because it has offset fossil fuel use by introducing 30,000 electric vehicles. Nepal has been selected for the first round to receive $40 million within one and a half years through the Clean Air System of the World Bank. Given that most of Nepal’s energy mix is from biomass, replacing them with electric stoves can significantly improve health by reducing indoor pollution as well as strengthen the country’s capacity for carbon trade. “Nepal's goal now is to sell carbon in the free market where carbon credits are bought and sold based on supply and demand in an open and transparent manner,” adds Pudasaini of the REDD Implementation Centre. “Nepal can now set its own price and bargain with interested buyer countries and organisations.” Lately, India has been discussing setting up a carbon market. Nepal has exported Rs12.72 billion worth of electricity to India so far this fiscal year, which can be traded under Nepal’s carbon market. “Carbon trading can create significant economic benefits for Nepal, which will help reinvest in development and environmental protection projects,” says Manandhar. “But we must prioritise sustainable management of forests, cutting older trees and allowing regrowth as well as promoting electric stoves and electric vehicles.”