Commentary
By Yug Bahadur
Most of the results of the local elections held on May 13 should be announced by the time this article is published and readers will be reading it. But there are some aspects of the election that this writer would like to dwell on and which few others have talked about.
First of all, 13 May fell on Friday, a day which many superstitious Anglo Saxons believe as a bad one. This writer is not that superstitious, but, as we are dominated by Western powers that believe in such superstitions, one wonders whether this election comes as a bad omen for Nepalis as well.
The Nepali Congress probably believes it did well in the election and its leaders and supporters may be enjoying this victory, but they should not forget that this may be a short triumph for them. The major parties in the five-party coalition government that have the Nepali Congress and the Maoist Center make strange bed partners. This is because the Maoists first killed supporters of the Nepali Congress when it made a deadly weapon to silence the government. In fact, the government was led by Sher Bahadur Deuba, who is the current prime minister and the two parties have also failed to bring out a joint election manifesto and many independent competitors were brought to the fore due to this alignment of the two totally different parties with different political views. The then prime minister late Girija Prasad Koirala had even boasted that he would eliminate all communists from Nepal when he was still in power. But sadly, he had to backtrack from such boasts and make friends that also, with the ultra-Left Maoists and another communist Prime Minister. Madhav Kumar Nepal, as the chief executive of this nation, made a statement for giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Koirala. This was an equally weird demand as the Nobel Prize is given by an organisation that is close to the US and powers close to it. If the presenters of this prestigious award were to listen to different governments around the world then it would be impossible for them to decide the winners in different categories of Nobel prizes.
Now to come back to our original theme about local elections, the most talked-about elections were for the post of mayor in Kathmandu, Bharatpur and Biratnagar. In Kathmandu, considered a bastion of the Nepali Congress and the CPN (UML), a surprise independent Balen Shah snatched away the post of mayor from these two big parties. In a rude election jolt for the bigger parties, the RPP, still considered an ‘untouchable’ party as it supported Hinduism and the institution of monarchy garnered a respectable number of votes and even won in four municipalities and was leading four other places. In Bharatpur, Renu Dahal, the daughter of the chairman of the CPN Maoist Center won the mayoral post, but this was done with the support of all party leaders in the present coalition, including the NC president who is also the prime minister of the country. However, in spite of winning many places in the local level elections, PM Deba has made many enemies within his own party, including the wrath of a rebel NC candidate in Bharatpur, who garnered thousands of votes though Deuba went against him.
In Biratnagar, considered a stronghold of the Koirala family, again, a member of the Koirala family, Nagesh Koirala won the seat of mayor. But in nearby Dharan and other municipalities, independent candidates and others won. In fact, almost all the parties in the present coalition lost in major areas where they were thought to be the strongest political forces. Deuba called the party supporters to cast their votes for Dahal instead of party loyalist Jagan Nath Poudel who still bagged fourteen thousand plus votes in spite of the fact that the five major parties had sworn to field consensus candidates like that of Renu Dahal in Bharatpur.
The truth is that now the people have become fed up with major parties who weave a high level of dreams for the common people, letting them down after the elections.
Sure, the common people in the streets also want political and press freedom, basic facilities like good education, a proper health care system and clean and good roads which the people in the developed world consider as basics. But here we yearn for such facilities and tend to believe in the political leaders and their parties who distribute such lies they make to the people at all times, especially during the election period. Now the people are waiting with bated breath on how those not within the alliance government will function to fulfil the dreams of people on the streets.
One suggestion to the independent winners or those who belong to the smaller parties is that they should not spread themselves into thin layers and try to accomplish everything at once.
For example in Kathmandu, which attracts people from all places in the country and which also is the hub of tourism, the officials in the municipality should focus on cleaning up the historic city and also making better and wider roads. The Kathmandu metropolis has ample funds to manage many things, but to maintain the streets, provide drinking water and keep intact the heritage sites, it can easily ask the central government, which is situated here to pitch in. Also in finding a proper place for the dumping of garbage it can ask the government to intervene without raising the ire of the locals in such areas. Now that they have political freedom and are thus also politically aware, people are demanding all sorts of facilities, forgetting their own responsibilities to make Nepal a wonderful destination.
Nepal still has its rich heritage sites, awesome mountains and virgin hills and valleys so foreigners love to visit this country. The government should be allowed to work freely, no matter who is in power, by the US, other rich Western countries and also fast-growing Inda, without interference in micro-level management. But much depends on our own government and how they forge ahead with the coalition they have forged in spite of the wide range of differences in ideologies among themselves. Will the local election be an eye-opener for such a reality to become (factual), instead of just daydreams?
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