We can sit here all day, moaning and groaning about everything that is wrong with Nepal. But what are the solutions?
One place to start would be with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/another-decade-to-get-it-right?preview_nonce=e8166bf726" target="_blank">electoral reform</a>. Just about every malaise in Nepali politics starts with flaws in the voting process. Despite <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/to-the-promised-land-after-election,4082" target="_blank">periodic elections</a> giving a candidate mandate, it rarely translates into <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/performance-legitimacy,3505" target="_blank">performance legitimacy</a>. As a result, crooks get re-elected over and over again.
It has become fashionable these days to blame democracy for governance failure, corruption, and lack of accountability. Some like the current prime minister are batting for an executive presidency to streamline decision-making.&nbsp;
Since 1990, however, the malfunction has not been in the democratic system but in the elected office-holders who populate it.
In many parts of the world, the democratic process has been hijacked by populists who fan ultra-nationalism, religious intolerance and xenophobia to get elected and then proceed to dismantle the very institutions of democracy that got them elected in the first place.
The stench of decomposing democracy is now overpowering, even in a certain neighbouring country. Although in Nepal we need to remain vigilant to prevent the election of demagogues, our problem is different: politicians who have struggled, suffered and sacrificed their lives for the restoration of democracy are the very ones undermining it.&nbsp;
And since democracy by definition means adult franchise, we have to ensure that all citizens have a say in selecting the most honest and efficient managers to run their municipal, provincial or federal governments for a given period.
The electoral system in a democracy lays down the rules about how those candidates are chosen. If the rules are relevant and are followed, we get a representative government and the people can reward elected officials with a second term in office.
Nepalis have historically shown great enthusiasm at election time, with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lower-than-usual-turnout-in-nepal-polls" target="_blank">turnouts</a> usually exceeding 65% in most constituencies. The voting is relatively peaceful, free and fair. The 2015 Constitution made elected assemblies more inclusive in terms of gender and minorities.
However, there have always been serious concerns about election financing and the high cost of campaigning. Vote buying, cashing in on caste, ethnic or party vote banks end up narrowing the choice for voters. &nbsp;
A candidate who has to first pay the party boss for a ticket, then spend a fortune on wholesalers of bulk votes will (if elected) try to recoup that investment many times over.&nbsp;
This <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/the-business-of-politics-in-nepal" target="_blank">politics of patronage</a> means that campaign financing comes from business cronies who will demand their pound of flesh in licenses and contracts from the representative they helped elevate to office.&nbsp;
That is why we now have so many <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/bulldozing-democracy" target="_blank">businessmen who are MPs, &nbsp;mayors and ward chairs</a>. Captains of industry figured that instead of giving money to someone else, why not run for office themselves? &nbsp;This has made it more and more difficult to distinguish between businessmen and politicians, it has politicised crime and criminalised politics.&nbsp;
On Monday, Nepal’s Election Commission came out with a new integrated draft bill based on several laws that will now be debated in the current session of Parliament.&nbsp;
The bill contains some radical reforms which, if implemented, could change the electoral system for the better. The First Past the Post (FPTP) system is the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/trickledown-corruption,4176" target="_blank">root of corruption</a>, and the bill would disallow those who have lost an election from contesting from another constituency.
The Proportional Representation (PR) system was supposed to promote inclusiveness, but has mostly promoted nepotism. The bill would bar serial MPs elected under the PR quota from contesting more than twice.
Since the FPTP system has not <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/headline/Pro-women,4081" target="_blank">ensured gender balance</a>, the bill binds parties to ensure that 33% of candidates for direct voting are women. The bill also seeks to add ‘None of the Above’ on the ballot paper, and if 50% of them are no votes, the election is null and void.
Perhaps the most welcome point in the bill is a provision that we have been <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/mirage-of-migrant-rights" target="_blank">hammering away</a> at in this space for years: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/news/we-are-treated-like-atms" target="_blank">absentee ballots</a>. Mailing and early polling would ensure that the 15% of Nepalis living abroad can <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/our-notes-count-but-our-votes-don-t" target="_blank">exercise their constitutional right to vote</a>.&nbsp;
Successive governments have blocked absentee ballots despite a Supreme Court ruling in 2018 because they fear diaspora votes will be anti-incumbent. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) notes that 151 of 216 countries allow nationals living abroad to vote.&nbsp;
What the Election Commission does not go far enough in its proposed bill is to make election financing more transparent because that is at the root of corruption in high places. We realise this is notoriously difficult to enforce, and even the United States has not been able to rein in campaign financing. But rules should at least be laid down.
There is rampant abuse of the PR system as a fig leaf for inclusion, why not scrap it altogether and instead require parties to field more women and minorities in the direct ballot.
In the final analysis, elections work if the political parties themselves have internal democracy, and the voters can make informed choices about candidates. Otherwise we will keep on having free and unfair elections that deliver the same tried, tested and failed candidates to office.
Parliament may do well to not just pass this bill, but also add into it additional reform measures about campaign financing.&nbsp;

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Free and unfair

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914118/636ba6d59c7e80680e07374ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Illustration: BHANU BHATTARAI</figcaption></figure>You have to give it to K P Oli, he seems to have wriggled out of the biggest crisis in his current tenure as prime minister. No, not the pandemic, but a near mutiny in his party.Just as rivals within his Nepal Communist Party (NCP) were <a href="http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/nepalitimes/pdf/Nepali_Times_1023.pdf" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/nepalitimes/pdf/Nepali_Times_1023.pdf&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1597992940879000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHvUZWeF0Yh_OxTrfcKiCLcAK_OeQ">set to mount yet another offensive</a> to oust him from office, he has defused the threat for now by agreeing to form a peacekeeping 6-member task force.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/at-midpoint-nepal-pm-struggles-to-deliver/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/at-midpoint-nepal-pm-struggles-to-deliver/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1597992940879000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGaWz90qiVortG7IDeVcLQnuUS7aw">Halfway through his tenure</a>, however, Oli and his party are not out of the woods yet. On Wednesday, for example, the Election Commission gave the re-registered UML its own election symbol. This was Oli’s gambit to threaten to split the party if his rivals continue to challenge him – and it looks like he wants to keep that option open in case they backtrack.After marathon meetings last week, Oli and party co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal reiterated their commitment to let a special party convention decide on the NCP leadership, and set up the taskforce to mediate till then. Since then, members of the anti-Oli faction including Madhav Nepal have been ominously quiet.It took Prime Minister Oli more than two-months to neutralise his rivals, but he is now confronted with the Covid-19 health and economic emergency. Cases are surging and large parts of the country have <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/kathmandu-valley-back-to-lockdown/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/kathmandu-valley-back-to-lockdown/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1597992940879000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFYUsu4Jw3Y7d-enikmRLhmwuSefw">gone back into lockdown.</a>Oli has been so engrossed in trying to save himself that he has not had time to save the country. There is widespread public outrage that his government mis-handled the coronavirus crisis and profited from the procurement process.What a fall from grace it has been for a party that swept the 2017 elections on the promise of ‘stability and prosperity’. Nepalis have seen neither in the past two-and-half years. Far from making the country stable, Oli is himself on shaky ground.With another two-and-half years to go for elections, NCP leaders seems to have decided that they have to improve performance. Even party insiders admit that if elections were held today, the NCP would not get a majority.Even before the Covid-19 crisis, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/survey-is-wakeup-call-for-nepal-government/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/survey-is-wakeup-call-for-nepal-government/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1597992940879000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHmNxzusFm_3a0CCRu5pGNvV8nSOQ">public disillusionment with his government</a> had been mounting. Oli first tried to silence critics with restrictions on the media. When that did not work, he reverted to ultra-nationalism to distract attention from his failures, and to defuse the threat from within his party.Even though the Covid-19 pandemic is a crisis, it gave the government a chance to finally prove itself. It did show some decisiveness in March with the lockdown, but failed to follow up by managing test kits, equipment, setting up adequate health facilities, and assisting those most affected by the lockdown. Worse, ministers were hand-in-glove with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/who-is-in-charge-in-nepal/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/who-is-in-charge-in-nepal/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1597992940879000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEnRraVc-7MRBr4N9KwMGJY6VSgNg">cronies and middlemen</a> to siphon off the budget.As the pandemic spread like wildfire across India, the government made another blunder last month by announcing that the lockdown had been lifted – knowingly fully well that there would be <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/heightened-covid-19-risk-at-india-nepal-border/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/heightened-covid-19-risk-at-india-nepal-border/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1597992940879000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFEZ4mQ-xBQQvF8LmWZe5Z4xeO6vw">unregulated movement across the open border</a>. It should have lifted restrictions in phases, but the deed was done. The current spike in cases, and the need for another lockdown is a result of that oversight.Now that the prime minister has agreed on a kind of ceasefire with his party rivals, his government has another opportunity to turn its full attention and show that it has the capacity to deal with the socio-economic fallout of the pandemic.To present a cleaner can-do face to the public, Oli is said to be working on a reshuffle. This is his last chance to nominate ministers based on integrity and capability rather than balancing internal party arithmetics.The fate of the party in the 2022 election depends on it.

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