Editorial
The country is spinning down a whirlpool of threat possibilities. These threats were imbibed in the aftermath of the 1990 change from a ‘partyless’ panchayat system to a multiparty system auguring in a new constitution. Modelled after the parliamentary system of government, thirty years of partyless-ness ensuring a leadership role of the monarchy was, in the rebound, constitutionally to insure that politics revolved around political parties and restricted the monarchy to parliamentary and customary ceremonialism as head of state. The movement enshrined the ideology that party politics was the epitome of modern democracy and monarchy was an outdated feudal impediment of no utility to the country. This made it convenient for party politics of 1990 to continue organizing against a monarchy made politically toothless to fend for itself in its role as a symbol of unity and protector of the constitution which was verified in the manner the parties coalesced against king Gyanendra’s attempt to bring the 1990 constitution back on track through elections derailed by partisan conflict in the country. Gyanendra in his last days asking merely served to legitimize the reinstitution of a duly dissolved parliament. Hence on Nepal’s constitutional history took to outright perversions sanctified solely by political parties cartelled by the 12 point Delhi agreement and endorsed by an international community who were more than happy to ensure their agenda in a new constitution. The new constitution introduced five years ago stopped functioning after the cartel broke last week. It was not the opposition parties that broke the cartel but a segment within the ruling party. The current constitutional stand-off stems from a pre-emptive move by the government not foreseen in the constitution.
By dissolving parliament and calling for elections, a simple democratic exercise, Prime Minister K.P. Ol has set the constitution on doldrums mode. What he has done though is formally broken the cartel. The constitution was designed to ensure the spoils be retained by the cartel. The prime minister says that he was made inoperative and non-functional by the spoils system. His opposition says that their claim to the spoils was constitutional. President Bidya Devi as protector of the constitution evidently agrees with the prime minister. The rest of the cartel does not. In the process, the constitutional contest at court has brought the total spoils system under purview. The constitution has come to a crunch. The state has been jeopardized. Since the monarchy has been edged out, the traditional authority with which that institution could have managed such repeated undermining of the state is lacking. The modernists represented in the political parties have time and again proved incapable of managing the state this round too. It is such opportunities that foreign powers take advantage in Nepal. Whether by design or not the country is once again made vulnerable and the prevailing institutions that should have been capable of controlling such excess have been emasculated and undermined over the years in support of the cartel, The dangers to the state are so evident that the people are in search of national alternatives. The doors are open to interventionists. The state is in free fall.
Login to add a comment