At stake is the identity of Swatantras and new-look RPP but also nation’s faltering hopes
By Bihari Krishna Shrestha
SWANTANTRAS THE REBELS
The recent general election has been different this time in that it elected several independent candidates, or Swatantras, including many members of a novel party with that very name, Swatantra Party, or the party of independents, mainly from the urban constituencies in Kathmandu valley and a few of them from outside. The distinctiveness of their win lay in the fact that they did not win on the strength of what they would do, their agenda of action. People voted them in to give a sure defeat to the corrupt politicians in the fray mainly from the three disgraced parties, the Nepali Congress (NC), the Nepal Communist Party-United Marxists Leninists (NCP-UML) or the Maoist Centre (MC). For all practical purposes, these Swatantras were seen as rebels.
The popular anger against them was so fierce that in Chitawan, for instance, the Swatatra party chair, Ravi Timilsena had vowed to take on and defeat none other than the Maoist Supremo, Prachanda, in the latter’s own home constituency. It indeed scared the hell out of the self-styled Supremo who bolted from his home constituency and went to the refuge of his one-time deputy, Baburam Bhattarai, in Gorkha from where he managed to win big.
These days, one wonders how the two feel in each other’s presence. While Prachanda is the PM, Lamichhane is one of his deputy PMs.
THE ROOTS OF THE ABASTHA PROBLEMS LAY IN THE BYABASTHA
However, the closest thing to an agenda of action of these rebels has been what the Swatantra Party chair, Rabi Lamichhane had said in the build-up to the election. He had said, using poetic alliteration to impress his audience, that they were there to “transform awastha”, and not “byabastha“. In other words, they intend to bring about improvement in the living conditions of the people within the framework of the existing political system itself.
However, this “system”– i.e. the Westminster version of democracy reintroduced in 1990, including the republican and federal version imposed on the people without popular mandate a decade and a half ago — for all practical purposes, has been a swamp of corruption all along, and just about every single politician, whether s/he be an NC walla swearing by “democratic socialism” or the UML or MC walla parroting dialectic materialism, remains a corrupt man or woman, completely immune from any possible prosecution. After all, all constitutionally provided anti-corruption watchdogs remain paralyzed under the sway of these same corrupt thugs.
The Swatantras must have surely noticed that these three big parties, the NC, NCP–UML and MC, had held their national conventions in the recent past, and had re-elected the same presidents, who ironically count among the most corrupt in the country historically.
While there was some serious, albeit unsuccessful, challenge to the sitting president Sher Bahadur Deuba in the NC, the strange thing was that the rampant corruption in the party was not even mentioned as an issue. The spectre was one of the younger corrupts trying to dislodge the older corrupts.
Nepal’s so-called Westminster democracy has always been the vicious cycle of corruption and more corruption. Briefly put, most candidates buy their nomination tickets from the party bosses (or their wives in some cases lately) for hard cash, splurge more of the same to buy votes in elections from the most impoverished and near-illiterate masses, and then, go on to make more cash while in power in preparation for the next elections to come but also to solidify his or her own personal financial worth too in the process. Corruption and more corruption have been the sum and substance of Nepal’s Westminster experience since day one of its restorations.
NO ROADMAP FOR IMPROVING AWASTHA NOR BYABASTHA
So, the glaring question to the Swatantras is what is your roadmap for transforming the fortunes of the people, the abastha, without subjecting this chronically corrupt system, the byabastha to some crucial surgical restructuring? Neither the Swatantra Party nor the individual Swatantras seem to have done any homework to analyze the cause-effect relationship in the hopeless state of development that the country is in.
Besides, most Swatantras who got elected as individuals or party members happen to be young professionals, with little prior experience in the governing of the state. That just makes matters worse for them, due to their ignorance as to where to intervene to make a difference, or what policies to promote for the attainment of their much-vaunted goals. The assumption behind why people voted for them is that they would bring about change. But, the question remains, What change?
THE NEW LOOK RPP IS EVEN IN A WORSE PREDICAMENT
The RPP too has essentially been no different from other parties because it was birthed by former Panchas most of whom were known to be corrupt. But at least one important Panchayat Minister,( late) Jog Mehr Shrestha, has once candidly observed that as politicians they did have a bad reputation. But he had presciently gone on to warn that in contrast to them those NC wallas, then out in the cold in India, were like the famished bedbugs; they would not stop sucking you until you would have been bled white.
While the RPP seems to have been in terminal decline ever since it was put together, it belongs to the current president, now deputy PM, Rajendra Lingden who, based on his own extraordinary performance as an MP from Jhapa, has been able to freshly inject confidence and hope among the party rank and file and won the presidency of the party by jettisoning the infighting old guards from what had literally been their monopoly of leadership.
Furthermore, Lingden soon managed to occupy the national limelight by categorically standing against corruption –comparing it to the heinous sin of drinking your own mother’s blood — and calling spade a spade when it came to Nepali politics. As a guest leader in the last NC convention, he had the temerity to equate politicians with “thieves”, and to complain that neither parliament nor the supreme court was functioning as they should.
In that very meeting, Maoist supremo Prachanda found it necessary to challenge and refute Lingden’s insults. When he was invited to take the floor, he had contemptuously referred to Lingden as “one earlier speaker” and asked his audience if they thought his (Lingden’s) analogy of the politicians with thieves were right. To Prachanda’s utter embarrassment, many in the audience shouted back loud: Yes, Yes, that was true.
Today, like Ravi Lamichhane, Rajendra Lingden too happens to be one of PM Prachnda’s deputy PMs.
CHALLENGE FOR THE SWATANTRAS AND THE RPP
For all practical purposes, both Swatantra’s and RPP’s outfits remain the “rebels” in the new parliament. While the former’s agenda is anything but logically worked out, RPP’s own remains big but essential. They want the end to federalism, secularism and republicanism imposed on the people without their express mandate, therefore, unconstitutionally. Equally importantly, RPP also stands solidly against corruption even as most of his colleagues from other parties, mainly the UML and MC, come with a tarnished reputation and with no regret in sight.
Historically, the present cabinet is probably the coming together of the oddest of bedfellows in which the two rebel factions would still be in the minority.
Already, Prachanda as PM seems to be beginning to throw a retaliatory gauntlet against these rebels. Lately, he had publicly spoken that one cannot be arguing for an end to federalism and republicanism while remaining in occupation of a ministerial berth. He had bluntly said, one must quit the cabinet to make such utterances.
The challenging message must surely not have fallen on deaf ears. But what are Lamichane’s and Lingden’s options?
FORM A REFORMISTS’ CAUCUS AND DRAW UP THEIR OWN COMMON AGENDA
The two challenges for the RPP and the Swatantras that stare them in the face are that they have to put up a struggle in the cabinet and parliament even as they also have to make sure that the people’s confidence in them continues to be robust.
The point is that the rebels and the nation cannot afford a failure if democracy is to make sense to the people.
Therefore, before too long, the RPP and the Swatantras must form a caucus of their own in the parliament and put up a united front against the corrupt elements who are still in the legislative body. They also must be in constant communication with the people, because they also need to win big in the next election to go on to fulfil their promise.
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