By Dev Raj Dahal
In today’s world of turmoil and change Nepali politics marvels ahead with a new leadership under Prime Minister Balendra Shah of Rastriya Swotantra Party (RSP). Parliamentary elections have given him a startling victory, near two-third majority. The vast swath of Nepali electorates, angry over grand corruption scandals, impunity, cronyism and non-performance in matters of public goods, turned against the older political classes of all variety– radical left, moderate left, centrist and conservatives on the March 5 parliamentary elections and empowered relatively new political party-RSP with an enticing support. The old leaders had shown fine skills in political agitation to install parliamentary democracy, establish institutions and constitution but failed to build the worthy aspiration of democracy, constitutional behavior and a culture of compromise to achieve political stability to deliver justice to the people. They were also adept at promulgating super structural change to give a semblance of modernity such as secular, federal and democratic republic. But their justification, rationality and validity of their heroic acts to the ordinary Nepalis remain spurious in concrete terms. Democratic dividends and political spoils were confined to the upper class of political elites affiliated to mainstream parties. Perpetually jockeying for power and pelf marked the instability of regime and the erosion of leadership efficacy in policy making while the adoption of market-driven globalization threatened the writ of constitution, social base of solidarity and unraveled the convergence of the state, economy and citizenship in the national space. The emergence of post-national order created by massive information flow, digitalization of politics and networks disarmed the traditional style of hierarchic, command and control politics and its scale and emptied the contents of basic party functions from socialization, mediation, communication to collective action on behalf of people. As Nepali political leaders failed to adapt to the changing normative, organizational and leadership values and virtues and make politics a non-zero-sum game where the losers in the elections have no stake in the political system even if its surface is democratic the new political classes seem mechanically divorced from the old ones.
Drain of constitutional patriotism: Owing to a lack of constitutional patriotism as a national frame, Nepali political leaders and their cadres have a layer of support to the constitution, some even veering to anti-constitutional direction. Since the day of its dawn it became a contested deed, not a frame of national unity. Plural Nepali media have exposed the behavioral patterns of leadership in a negative light, politicized the people and highlighted the gap between enormity of constitutional rights and skewed opportunities for them to realize other than to join the global labor market en masse due to the lack of their political nexus. To realize the unrealized needs, rights and aspirations, fluid movements of social classes, civil society and critical masses consciously fuelled their passion for action. Their countervailing pressure against the establishment had set a structural context for youth revolt, discredited the entire ruling classes, sought generational justice and anti-corrupt good governance. The parliamentary election organized by the interim government of Prime Minister Sushila Karki had tested the strength of various parties in which RSP emerged as dominant party with 182 seats in a 275 seat parliament (165 directly elected and 110 proportional seats), followed by Nepali Congress 38, CPN-UML 25, Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) 17, Shram Sanskriti Party 7, Rastriya Prajatantra Party 5 and one Independent. The Communist Party of Nepal (CPN), a constellation of 14 left groups, suffered the most devastating blow. Its coordinator Puspa Kama Dahal Prachand had, however, won this time. Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) and Nepali Congress (NC) also suffered huge loss of seats. The mass of Nepali voters de-aligned from the old parties and switched to RSP. Leadership tension in these Madhesi parties and Rastriya Prajatantra Party which championed for Hindu state and constitutional monarchy has left them diminished in size and disarrayed as many of their aspiring youth leaders joined the RSP struggling for a mandate for change. This tension in the old parties will continue to fragment them along factional lines so long as they deviate from the conventional ideologies and identities, social inclusion, remain leader-oriented and leave party structures de-institutionalized, centralized and non-deliberative without any feedback from the grassroots committees and people. Unable to make the party politically cohesive, each of them resorted to authoritarian response and harnessed transactional leadership built around the passion of patronage and syndicate which conscious the young generation exposed to increasing democratic constitutional and human rights, modernization and information revolution increasingly loathed as unconstitutional.
Displacement of Leadership: The transition in leadership from the old to the new generation is vivid. One can see the fear of CPN coordinator Puspa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ about the whole displacement of old leadership. The generational change, however, supposes thinking to make politics stable, efficient, orderly and fair so that each Nepali becomes the stakeholder of democracy, economy and the state system. The electoral sweep of RSP has reduced tribal, ethnic, regional, ideological, and identity related passion to the sideline of political power, and garnered strong legitimacy to governance. It has formulated a comprehensive national vision of transformational reforms seeking to introduce structural change of the political system and enabling it to perform, set up anti-corrupt good governance, bring the talented youth into mainstream to hone meritocratic culture and vitalize the economy to achieve national self-reliance. Two critical challenges stand: formulation of a balanced foreign policy capable to adapt to shifting regional and global geopolitics without the risks of internal political polarization and formulate economic policies consistent with national self-reliance which demands ranking of priorities on energy, agriculture, industry, health, education, infrastructural development to realize the national vision of the creation of an egalitarian society. It can help control the mass exodus of youth to the international labor market draining dynamic manpower for the production, employment and change.
Three traps of increasing debt, remittance and techno-feudalism must be dispelled to generate a ray of hope for the poor Nepalis livelihood, jobs and priority on real economy. Positive outcome of participatory democracy and development may change the nature of Nepal’s political culture of negation of opponent, leader-oriented electoral coalition and government formation and deeply-entrenched partisanization and personalization system seeping across all public institutions aiming both policy and institution capture. Democratic game is a win-win and disperses benefits to impersonal citizens who may or may not be a member of political parties. The top-down, transactional model of leadership has hampered the impersonal performance of governing institutions and kept a disconnect between the public authorities and the ordinary public in matters of the distribution of public goods causing widespread discontent of Nepalis beyond the imagination of think tanks and media. The denouement is: youth revolt. Displacement effect of ideology-created political classes to techno-centric generation who is working beyond several basic pillars of economic management—fiscal, monetary, income, trade and investment to include environment, industry and agriculture, health, educational reforms, digitalization and infrastructures and shift in foreign policy to claim national self-determination, dignity and identity. The decoding of political, bureaucratic and corporate camouflage in grand corruption and taking legal action against them has become important to remove Nepal from the grey list. Vigorous implementation of the code of national integrity system and its compliance by anti-corruption watchdog are critical factors.
Reorganization of political parties: Old parties are struggling to reorganize their party apparatuses brining new faces to various positions, seeking to go to the electorates with new promises of reforms, restructuring party schools for leadership training on public issues and ideologies, acknowledging their past mistakes and strengthening new communication and feedback system to strengthen the social basis of parties. But the insurmountable contradictions persist as CPN-UML Chairman K. P. Oli is sticking to his position despite several blames hurled by National Human Rights Commission and Justice Gauri Bahadur Karki Commission making his rule responsible for the death of 19 students during Generation Z revolt and sacking many dissident leaders within his party. While Madhav Kumar Nepal, Jhalanth Khanal and leaders close to them defected from the party, Ishwar Pokhrel contested election against him and his loyalists Shankar Pokhrel and Bishnu Poudel are struggling for restructuring of the party seeking his resignation. Only two of his staunch supporters are ex-Maoist military commander Ram B. Thapa Badal and Mahesh Basnet. NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba had resigned from his post but the tussle for the legality of leadership between Gagan Kumar Thapa faction and Deuba faction led by Purna B. Khadka remain simmering despite the fact that EC and the Supreme Court have recognized the legitimacy of Thapa faction following the holding of special convention of the party. The CPN too is riled by feuds within the fractious groups and those outside who had fought People’s War but was sacked by Prachands as they are asking for him to resign and ease the process of leadership change though he is fighting of left unity to topple down the government muster the strength of left force. RPP is also undergoing the similar process of structural change and its validity was questioned by those who did not participate in the parliamentary elections as per former king’s suggestions. The fragmentation of the political sphere does not augur well for political stability in the nation of minorities. Stability requires a non-zero-sum game.
Electoral victory is not point scoring to alienate the rival. Weak opposition can easily undermine democratic dynamics, the prospect of alternative policies and bring several forces into streets thus provoking parliamentary, extra-parliamentary, extra-constitutional and anti-systemic dissents. Already leaders of old parties are making efforts to stage a comeback and threatening the government of revolution if the achievements they collectively made under 12-point Delhi agreement on secular, federal democratic republic, proportional elections and social inclusion are subverted by the government in the name of comprehensive reforms. Zero-sum mentality of politics or its overdrive can easily bring Nepali politics to a situation of deadlock and freezes the prospect of transformation. The elites of old political parties know constitutional change is not possible without two-third majority in both the houses of parliament where they control the upper house. This means consensus building on constitutional reform can be an exercise in futility as they become positional in their stand and do not want to upset the status quo of vital institutions including the court, bureaucracy, student unions and trade unions within public administration where they had agreed to respect each other’s privileges and access to resources. They perceive that creative destruction of their privileges by the new government and investigation on their corruption charges which the younger leaders of the parties had endorsed can bring a seismic shift in purging politics and enable the state institutions and political system function properly. This is an opportunity for shifting patrimonial, neoliberal governance to a participatory culture.
Reclaiming the state: The current government finds the role of welfare state and tries to claim it for national sovereignty, security, rule of law, macro-economic steering, development and production and distribution of public goods to the people. Popular sovereignty entrenched in the Nepali constitution frees people from tribalism, feudalism and blind faith and envisages the dignity of life in harmony with others. Future conscious Nepalis demand a balance between the government and the opposition where the roles of public institutions underscore high importance to augment the outreach of Nepali state in society for social and national integration and stifle irresponsible indulgence harmful to public order and national self-determination. The Nepali government is reclaiming the public policy sovereignty which was abandoned by the previous regimes as they only adapted public policies formulated by outsiders for different contexts. The nation expects leaders who do not inflate their ego but remain virtuous who build institutions, connect the people to each other and tend social capital for mutual cooperation and cooperative action. Only a strong state can execute the constitution, create order in society, enforce rule of law and justice, support the autonomy of constitutional bodies and fulfill the rights of people. Stable peace can be achieved not only by a political equation where only the powerful prevails but by a participatory system of rule which can mediate the rival interests of political parties by the state and defend national interests in international politics. Two facts are crucial for Nepal where the state and political parties can play roles in building multi-generational bridges in politics and proportionality in the representation of the nation’s diversity so that multiple identities of people, their interests and ideologies are optimized in the historical wisdom of golden mean and regular dialogues are hold among the political leaders, civil society, scholars and citizens around the need to confront national challenges. It can help the integrity of the political system and harmonize the interest of the state and society in a non-adversarial, non zero-sum mode of governance.
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