On/Off the Record
By P.R. Pradhan
Every day we are watching a comedy show that too at free of cost. Since the formation of the government led by K.P. Sharma Oli along with the backing of a two-thirds majority, the executive prime minister spent most of his valuable time while meeting Pushpakamal Dahal. The meeting between the then two chairmen of the then ruling Nepal Communist Party was taking place almost daily and sometimes twice or thrice. Such an engagement between the then two chairmen of NCP had surprised us. After all, what were they doing! Finally, PM Oli said that he was not allowed to work for free hands by his party colleagues. Oli’s colleagues were always insisting the former taking one after another unconstitutional and unethical decisions. Some election defeated leaders got the ticket to get elected as the National Assembly member, which is unethical and immoral. Narayankaji Shrestha and later Bamdev Gautam, both defeated candidates in the parliament election were elected as the members of the National Assembly. Oli was under pressure to amend the constitution by paving the way for Gautam to become a prime minister. The dispute in the ruling Nepal Communist Party was intensified since Bamdev Gautam desired to become the PM after Oli. Gautam was provoked by Prachanda and Madhav Nepal. The dispute that was started from Gautam’s election reached the optimum level when Oli decided to dissolve the Parliament.
Then started the Supreme Court drama. The Supreme Court, discarding an executive prime minister’s prerogative, restored the parliament. Again, we saw another drama staged by the Supreme Court. That was a legal separation of the NCP into UML and Maoist Center. Since then, we are watching the drama in the parliament. Practically, neither the ruling party is able to secure a majority, nor the opposition parties are able to give an alternative government. The dispute and the drama of the confidence motion in the central government have escalated to the provincial governments. We saw all the dirty tactics at the province level and the central level politics.
Out of many, many dirty tactics, the Gandaki Province chief minister rewarded Deepak Manange as the minister to save his government. Senior political leaders, who were directly involved in the drafting of the existing constitution, have criticized the UML leadership for assigning gangster Deepak Manange also known as Rajeev Gurung as the minister of the Gandaki Province. The senior leaders have expressed their utter dissatisfaction with the government for assigning a person with having a criminal background to the post of a minister.
Manange’s assignment is not odd. We saw Pushpakamal Dahal Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai as the prime minister. They were the commanders of the “people’s war” in which above 17 thousand innocent people were killed. Still, on the charge of severe violation of human rights, they are unable to travel to European countries. Prachanda had to travel to the United States through a backdoor channel when he had gone there for the treatment of his spouse Sita. The American administration had to issue a special order for not invoking cases against him. Prachanda had to cancel his visit to Australia at the last moment when he was informed that he could be arrested by the Australian Police upon his arrival there. Baburam Bhattarai and many other Maoist leaders are always escaping their visit to Europe. Agni Sapkota became the speaker by escaping a murder case in the Court. Sapkota is facing a murder charge and the case is under consideration of the Supreme Court. Legally, he is not eligible to become the speaker, unfortunately, he is on the chair.
If the CIAA will open the corruption files, many of the influential leaders will be jailed, unfortunately, they are enjoying the power. Against the backdrop of criminalized politics since the restoration of “loktantra”, Manange’s height is very small compared to the crime committed by other influential leaders.
When the constitution and the laws cannot stop criminals from enjoying power, it is worthless to target Manange alone. When the entire constitutional organs and government organs are dominated by criminals, frauds, traitors, and corrupts, Manange can never be a target. If Manange could be able to get elected as a member of the provincial assembly, why he is unable to become a minister! Such issues had to be taken under consideration when the constitution was drafted. During the drafting of the constitution, the only thing that was focused on how to empower those criminals and traitors!
The fact is that democracy is a system safeguarding a nation’s sovereignty, national interests; preserving social values, culture, tradition, identity; maintaining law and order and performing morale. In absence of the above-mentioned characteristics, a democracy cannot flourish. Above all, a democratic system should be for the overall development of the nation.
Whether we accept it or not since we adopted the multiparty democracy in 1989, the democratic values started to spoil and after the adoption of “loktantra” in 2006, democracy has been criminalized, which was call it “loktantra”!.
Not a surprise, the present constitution is written by those having criminal background.
Login to add a comment