Editorial
Regression has been a term long used in Nepal for decades now. Surya Bahadur Thapa and his likes in the bad old Panchayat days used it to tarnish opponents as undemocratic. This implied that he and his supporters were democratic and ‘liberal’ in that otherwise ‘illiberal’ system. His democratic credentials, however, remain questionable in the background of the fact that it was the ‘Back to the village’ national campaign that nominated him to the then national panchayat (parliament’ after he failed miserably to elect himself from his home constituency of Dhankuta. That it was he who demanded corporal punishment for B.P. Koirala the ultimate Nepali democrat and liberal is conveniently swept under the Nepali political carpet. Regression in post-1990 days served as convenient terminology to warn the public of monarchical threats regardless of the fact that the monarchy was very much in the constitution and this served very well to undermine king Gyanendra’s constitutional attempt to conduct elections sabotaged by partisan wrangling amidst an undeclared Maoist insurgency not recognized as such by a system willing to wallow in non-performance that ultimately undermined the very security of the state. How K.P. Oli is being fingered as regressive by his opponents which include everybody but Oli supporters in parliament cannot but be interpreted as a charge that admits that there is a systemic threat in the non-performance of a system still wallowing in partisan wrangling. In essence, thus, it is Oli and the system and everybody within the system including those who point fingers at him that are regressive since it is their performance that has brought this system to a point of regression by their oft-repeated penchant to compete for and mobilize public office for gains put behaviorally distant by the system.
But, politics is politics after all. What is important is the widespread recognition now that regression is due. This compels the progressive argument that regression can be averted by elections. But this, after all, is what the prime minister has been saying all along. It is safe therefore to conclude that Prime Minister Oli will face this charge from among his opponents who will not be included in his election government. The scramble to be included in governments that conduct elections in the country is a sordid feature of Nepali politics that speaks volumes on our democratic elections. The other aspect being attempted, of course, is the formation of an alternative government outside of Oli’s reach, Oli being the regression. There is a more logical argument, however. The total gamut of Nepali political actors monopolizing the system today is the regression. They have since 1950 one might add, repeatedly brought systems to a point of regression and elections merely serve to legitimize their regressive behaviour over and over again. The argument that elections remedy such regressive behaviour comes redundant in the milieu of the monopoly our politicians have over the system which makes elections merely a tool by which they endorse their monopoly. In this sense, it is the system that is regressive. Elections are no remedy. It is a systemic change that can remedy the regression.
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