From the Nepali Press
Editorial in Himal Khabarpatrika, 8-14 May
The dramatic tension in the ruling coalition last week ended suddenly just as it started. Maoist Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s attempt at regime change to head a new government with the NC under his leadership was scuttled overnight.
Although Dahal was seen at the forefront of this move, the real mastermind of the coup attempt was the NC’s Sher Bahadur Deuba, who had won the party presidential election in March and visited New Delhi a week before the political drama. It was obvious India wasn’t happy with Prime Minister Oli’s government and used Deuba to try to unseat him.
According to the constitution, a new federal parliament needs to be elected by 21 January 2018. To meet that deadline, local, provincial assembly and parliamentary elections all need to be completed. And the lower house of the Federal Parliament can only be formed after the upper house National Assembly is formed. The rules and regulatoins, the number of federal provinces, electoral constituencies and their boundaries, all need to be finalised before that with at least a two-thirds vote in parliament.
The problem is that parliament hasn’t moved on any of these issues. It hasn’t even made its own rules of procedure yet. The UML-led government and the opposition NC look as if they couldn’t be bothered. The NC is obsessed with regime change. The dissident Madhes-based parties haven’t yet been brought into the fold.
Ordinarily, a change of government isn’t unusual in a parliamentary democracy. But these are not ordinary times. An opposition’s role has to be much responsible and it is critical because a neighbour that professes ‘special relations’ with Nepal has been actively provoking the Madhes-based parties to spread political anarchy.
The NC is a people-based party that has grappled with many national crises in our recent past. Whether this constitution is a living document, or has a short lifespan will depend on how members of the current parliament behave themselves.
The current session of parliament must be seized by its responsibilities. For this, the NC and the UML must work together in a way that will remove obstacles to implement the constitution. Both parties must be flexible, even if it means sharing power. To be sure, the events of the past week have poisoned the atmosphere somewhat. But the two parties could work with the Maoists to take their cooperation forward. There is no alternative to this. With cooperation today, it will not be possible to have a loyal opposition tomorrow.
If parliament descends to just being a playground for power struggles, powerful forces outside will be stronger than the parties represented. There are already indications of this happening.