In spite of much talk about a national government, the three major parties in the Constituent Assembly (CA), the UCPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress and CPN (UML) were unable to come to any consensus on different issues. In fact these parties have been exposed of their real intentions when no agreement was reached even after the extra five days given by President Ram Baran Yadav expired on Sunday night. On Monday, the President has called on the parties to elect the Prime Minister from the Constituent Assembly.“Since the political parties failed to select a consensus Prime Minister, the President has sent a letter to the Parliament to select a Prime Minister on majority basis as per Article 38 (2) of the Interim Constitution, an advisor of the President has been quoted as saying by a daily newspaper.
Meanwhile, amidst the political stand-off between the three major parties on who would lead the government, the Legislature-Parliament unanimously approved an “advanced budget” of Rs. 110.21 billion presented by caretaker Finance Minister Surendra Pandey. The political leaders have admitted that it had not been possible to present the regular budget estimates for the Fiscal Year 2010-2011 due to “political instability”. The parties had agreed to present this “special” budget, as if this was not done, the state would have been at a stand-still fiscally. Right now it is estimated that this advance budget will allow the government activities to continue for about four months. But no development activities have been addressed by the budget. This situation already gives a stark picture of the prevalent situation in the country.
Till the time of writing the parties had not come to any agreement to form a new government.
But to come back to the habit of how the parties come to an agreement at the last moment almost always, many allege that this has become the standard practice in recent times, but otherwise, like in the formation of a new government, they, specially the three major parties, will keep on bargaining and make constant efforts to get an upper hand.
A fortnight has already passed since Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned through a televised statement on June 30. The Maoists had said that if Prime Minister Madhav Nepal resigned, a consensus government could be formed “within half an hour”. But this seems to have been a hyper-inflated statement from the side of the Maoists. Forget half an hour, the parties have not been able to come to an agreement for a consensus government, leave alone a “National” government, even after hundreds of hours have passed by.
The three major parties, which have taken the onus of taking major decisions for the country in the past four years or so, seem to have been guided only with their own petty interests or the constant prodding of foreigners, including India, the US and other Western nations. Considering the lack of interest shown by these parties to the true concerns of the general people, it can now be seriously questioned whether decisions like declaring the nation a republic and also making Nepal, the only Hindu country in the world, a secular state, was taken with sincerity and conviction or just because of the leaders’ compulsion to act as per orders from “outside”. Maybe the parties have gained politically in the short run, and maybe they have been able to cast aside the institution of the monarchy, considered an obstacle by those who wanted to have a free hand in Nepal and also the “secularists” forces, but now, the parties and leaders have nobody to point fingers at, except each other and going by the tense political struggle taking place, it seems outside forces are also perplexed by what step should be taken now.
In the country itself, the Nepalese people are going through a harrowing period, when not only do they live a life of insecurity, but they also have become victims of “hyper-inflation” and they have to live with constant scarcity of basic essentials, including electricity, water, cooking gas, petrol and kerosene. But the political leaders have scant time to even think about such problems of the people, leave alone act on it. Has one party or one leader brought out any programmes to address such problems?
Constant promises are made of how things will improve after a new constitution is drafted, but if this is so, then why aren’t these parties, who have been given a grace period of one more year to draft a new constitution, doing anything about that task entrusted to them? They wasted the given two years, wasting billions of rupees of the tax payers money, and barely even mentioned the “C” of the new constitution. Nothing has changed now, even after the extended period, with pay and perks, was given to the gargantuan Constituent Assembly consisting of 601 members.
Therefore, for most Nepalese, it is irrelevant who becomes the Prime Minister through an election in the CA. Most believe that “lucky” individual and his or her party, will again be busy only in trying to save the government and please each and every representative in the Assembly, and not work for the problems faced by the people. Like mentioned last week, all that the people have seen, besides insecurity, scarcity, inflation and crime, is the constant meetings, specially between the leaders of the three major parties, which always seem to be “inconclusive”.
A prominent columnist had written that more than the present confusing situation, what is worrying for the people is the absence of any hope of anything being done by the present crop of leaders to get the country out of the present turmoil. “If there is a major mishap in the commercial banking sector, that could be the catalysts for another much more deadly and dangerous conflict to start in this troubled country,” he predicted. The confusion among the political leaders even on the presence of the United Nations Mission in Nepal, indicates, there is a chance that there will be more presence of such agencies and maybe even foreign forces in Nepal in the days to come. Can anybody still hope that the ever squabbling parties and foreign guided leaders can tackle this complicated and complex situation? It is doubtful.
peoplesreview.com.np