On/Off the Record
By P.R. Pradhan
Nepal’s constitution can be compared with a camel by its shape and can be defined as its articles and sub-articles from different angles. The constitution is the largest document by its size and most expensive compared to the expenditure made by the government to draft it.
The constitution, written by the CA members of the second Constituent Assembly, especially those in the Constitution drafting Committee in the CA headed by Baburam Bhattarai has fallen into controversy since the first day of its promulgation. What type of constitution that Bhattarai wrote, it makes clear as the constitution is non-functional.
Today, the debate on the constitutional provision has reached to the Supreme Court. A section of legal experts is predicting that the prime minister doesn’t enjoy the privilege of dissolving the House of Representatives. On the other hand, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and his supporters are claiming that since Nepal has adopted the parliamentarian democracy, the prime minister holds the prerogative to dissolve the parliament. The five-member constitutional bench headed by Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana is to define the prerogative of the PM.
Interestingly, nowhere in the constitution, it is mentioned that the PM cannot dissolve the parliament.
A section of the political activists is trying to heat the streets demanding restoration of the HoR dissolved by PM Oli, whereas, another section is urging the political leaders to go for a fresh people’s mandate.
In a democracy, political leaders should be abided by the law. If one will try to violate the law or define the law to fulfil his personal interests or if the leader wishes to remain above the constitution, democracy will take a wrong course.
There was no ideological dispute between the Oli faction and Prachanda-Nepal faction in the Nepal Communist Party. However, the dispute was surfaced on the issue of taking more shares in the government. The dispute was intensified when Oli’s rival group within the party started to get less share in the government. In fact, the real dispute was started when KP Oli wanted to reshuffle his cabinet by giving an opportunity to a fresh team by ousting those ministers who had already completed two years in the cabinet. Under this plan, Pushpakamal Dahal Prachanda’s daughter-in-law Bina Magar was automatically going to be ousted from the cabinet, which was not digestible for Prachanda. He, then, developed an alliance with Madhav Nepal, an old rival of Oli since the UML days. Oli’s rival camp then developed a one-point agenda to oust Oli from both the positions – PM and party chairman. Oli, time and again, had made clear publicly that he was not interested to repeat the same position further. Therefore, he had given words to the party colleagues that he was not going to contest the party election in the upcoming national convention of the party scheduled for April. Again, he had given words that he was not going to contest to the post of the PM after completing the five-year tenure in office. He had even advised his colleagues who had already enjoyed the post of the PM and the party chief to play the role of the patron by giving the opportunity to the next generation leaders. The power greedy political leaders didn’t listen to Oli. They didn’t show patience to wait till the national convention of the party. Now, they are in the streets and trying their best to intensify the agitation against the government. Their main demand is the restoration of the parliament. Their main wish is to enjoy the power — Prachanda plans to become the prime minister, Nepal to become the party chairman and JN Khanal to become the President. Their plan is to oust Oli through a no-confidence motion in the restored parliament and also initiating an impeachment motion against President Bidya Devi Bhandari. To make success their mission, they have proposed Sherbahadur Deuba, president NC, the main opposition party, forging a long-term alliance. They had offered Deuba the post of the PM after the success of the street agitation. Indeed, this is an attempt for an unholy alliance for just sharing power in the government. The nation is going to get nothing else. Also, whether Deuba has observed the act of Prachanda-Nepal camp that how they had made hostage to the executive chef of the government just to fulfil their personal interests, will those power greedy leaders allow Deuba to enjoy the PM’s post?
Oddly, why our youths are running behind Oli or Prachanda-Nepal as the present battle is just for enjoying power either by one or the other! What those followers will get if one will win the other?
We don’t know, whether the Court will restore the parliament or not! We don’t know, whether there will be a timely election or not! We only know that the present constitution is defective, non-functional and it will do nothing better to the nation and the people. Therefore, the need of the time is to scrap the constitution as soon as possible.
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