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The implications of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s four-day visit to India will be known in due course of time.    Notably, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised during the visit to take bilateral relations to Himalayan heights by resolving all pending issues with Nepal.  Now, however, India appears to be on a wait-and-watch mode. It will study how Dahal concludes his visit to China, as it is believed that the road to Beijing passes through New Delhi.  While Dahal is right in saying that his visit has reduced the trust deficit with India, the real picture will emerge gradually.   It seems PM Dahal visited India with a well-defined plan—with two goals in mind. The first was to formally take up all pending bilateral issues by incorporating inputs from several quarters. And second, the primary motive was to seek Indian cooperation for sharing hydropower for mutual interests to minimize a yawning trade deficit with India. Perhaps, after getting a green signal from India, he became impatient for his visit. Dahal wanted to get India’s commitments on hydropower sharing and various other matters like hydropower trade with Bangladesh through India. Some other agreements on enhancing transport connectivity for strengthening Nepal-India trade relationship were also on his wish-list . Dahal perhaps felt that the handover of two more lucrative hydropower projects (669 MW Lower Arun and 480 MW Phuket Karnali) will help the country overcome a serious economic crisis, knowing well the limitations of other natural resources like forests. So he went ahead, despite the recent handover of other vital projects—750-MW West Seti, 450-MW Seti River-6 and 900-MW Arun-3. Altogether, India now has projects with combined capacity of 3249 MW in its basket.  Against this backdrop, Dahal faces charges of compromising Nepal’s national interest.  But nobody questions as to why Nepal remains deprived of the benefits of hydropower for more than seven decades. This is one of the major factors keeping millions of people below the poverty line and forcing younger generations to toil in other countries for their bread and better.   He did raise long-pending and serious issues like border disputes knowing well that such issues cannot be solved at one go. Resolution of these problems requires long-lasting and cool deliberations between the two sides.  The Maoist supremo is known for his dynamism as he can turn his coat any time to suit his interests. Dahal and the then second-in-command of the Maoist party, Baburam Bhattarai, displayed their images of revolutionary leaders while taking the oath of office by presenting them in the western outfit (tie and suit). Dahal continued to wear this dress even during his second oath-taking ceremony and at all official functions.  However, while taking oath as the PM for the third time, Dahal had a change of dress.  He donned the official dress of Daura and Suruwal, perhaps to present himself in a hardcore patriotic avatar and show that he was no less patriotic than others. Looking back, he was ‘anti-India’ while taking up arms against the state in 1996, as most of the demands he submitted to the then government were against India.  However, he changed his mind together with his second-in-command Baburam Bhattarai and wrote to the Indian Prime Minister’s Office in 2003, pledging to cooperate with India. It will be no wonder if Dahal, one fine day, denounces the decade-long insurgency as the Maoist folly against the state in which around 17,000 people were killed.  Back to his recent visit. An agreement on the purchase of 10,000 MW of electricity was almost certain to materialize this time. A 25-year bilateral trade treaty was also supposed to become a reality. India was also expected to allow at least one air entry point to Nepal for incoming international flights.   But things did not unfold as planned. The 10,000-MW energy deal did not materialize in writing, though Modi made a commitment to this effect at the joint press conference.  While a 10-year trade treaty materialized instead of a 25-year one, Nepal got no additional air entry route.  The two sides agreed on completion and submission of a detailed project report of the Pancheshwar multipurpose project within three months. This project has been pending for several decades despite. Notably,  PM Modi had, during his first visit to Nepal in 2014, issued instructions for submission of the project’s DPR within three months. Any diplomacy has marginal benefits. It is the geography and cultural ties that bind two nations together. In our case, nature decided geographic proximity millions of years ago. We cannot make our rivers flow northward nor can we stop their flow. Perhaps, India wants to check whether Dahal had a change of mind or heart. Mind can change with change in circumstances but the heart does not. As things stand, India seems interested in having better relations with Nepal. We should also reciprocate with self-respect and in mutual interests.  

The new Constitution, adopted by the Constituent Assembly in September 2015, has moved ahead with the completion of presidential and vice-presidential elections on March 9 and March 17, 2023, respectively. The elections for the Speaker and Deputy Speaker were held earlier whereas provincial and local level elections were completed much earlier. The constitution has defined the functions of the President in two specific terms—protection and observance (of the constitution). Naturally, politicians and constitutional experts consider protection and observance of the constitution as two distinct functions of the presidency. If the president is regarded as the protector of the charter, it places the position of the president above the constitution. No doubt, these two terms have two different connotations. However, to keep in view the spirit of the republican constitution these two functions have to be taken together, for it envisages that president is not above the constitution, as it is a post created by the charter itself to complete the defined course legislation and other formal functions. Hence the prime duty of the president is to observe the charter. If the president refuses to abide by the statute, there is no superior constitutional authority to compel him or her to follow it. The refusal makes the statute dysfunctional and places the presidency above it, providing the presidency the liberty to ignore the advice of the cabinet. Sadly, it has happened in the past. The outgoing president did not nominate the persons recommended by the cabinet to the Upper House. The Bills were not certified/signed by her to make them laws. The government remained a silent spectator in all this. Significantly, the helplessness of the government seems to be the outcome of the lack of vision of the framers of the charter. Consciously or unconsciously, they made presidential and vice-presidential posts insulated indirectly from the process of impeachment by not providing the provision for the immediate suspension of these posts on the registration of the impeachment motion similar to all other posts of constitutional bodies. In the past, two chief justices were suspended immediately after impeachment motions against them were registered in the House of Representatives. This provision could have been made equally applicable to these two supreme posts. The process of suspension is the first step for taking action against those officials charged with serious allegations to conduct a fair investigation. Significantly, this provision works as a deterrent for offenders and also functions like undue pressure over the fair and impartial functioning of constitutional bodies to toe the line of the political parties in power that can register the motion of impeachment. Perhaps, the framers of the statute did not realize that the posts of president and vice-president are the creations of constitutional provisions. These posts cannot be claimed on the basis of any divine or hereditary right. Logically, when these posts are liable to be impeached, the further process of suspension would have been provided in the constitution. Its non-existence can be interpreted that to keep these posts above the process of immediate suspension makes these posts unimpeachable, as without getting suspended it is difficult to pass the motion of impeachment when the persons concerned are in the office. It seems that these posts were insulated practically from impeachment as the framers might have thought to get these highest posts reserved for themselves by holding it their exclusive right to have them, which is evident from the recent elections for these posts. Interestingly, though the president is only a titular head, the post has been made so glorious that it is difficult for a lay person to distinguish between the previous monarchical and the present republican era. The security umbrella given to this post causes a lot of inconvenience to the people. However, the new president rightly wants to modify the traditional security cover. It is no secret that the post has the least security threat, as no real power is vested in it, as the president has to act as per the advice of the government. It is good that the president has repeatedly assured the people that he will protect and follow the charter. However, he could have noted that the charter wants him to follow it to protect it. Of course, he has to be an  ‘emergency light’, as claimed by an India president, to act maturely when situation demands and not in a partisan way, as has been witnessed recently. Our infantile republic has just started crawling. He must be careful till it walks confidently so that it does not fall into a ditch of political chaos.    

The present political scenario raises some questions: Are we destined for prolonged political instability? Will Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal continue for a limited period or full term? Generally, the electoral system is blamed for instability, as it produces a hung parliament with no single party securing a majority in the House of Representatives. But a hung parliament can hardly be blamed, as in parliamentary system coalition culture has been practiced in many countries in South Asia and Europe. We cannot blame the parliamentary system, which envisages joint responsibility, as it is also called the ‘Cabinet System’ in which the Prime Minister is held as the senior among the equals. Ministers are responsible not only to the Prime Minister but to the House as well. The job of a PM is to coordinate among the ministers. However, it is also called the prime ministerial system, as the parties, while contesting general elections, informally select their leaders who lead the election campaign. A PM is changed, of course, but with the change in the confidence of the House. It is never bargained among the parties or groups before a PM is elected as the leader of the House. We have a history of frequent changes of guard since the election to the Constitution Assembly. We have had about a dozen governments from 2008 to 2023. Interestingly, the same old faces have replaced one another all along. It shows a handful of leaders controlling their parties and the absence of inner democracy in party folds. No doubt, periodic elections are held in the parties but candidates not enjoying the endorsement of leaders hardly win such elections. Worldwide, several popular PMs have continued for years. But the same leader serving as PM time and time again is a case unique to Nepal. It is a truism that political power is required to do good to the people. It is a means. But when a means becomes an end in itself by becoming an insatiable hunger for power, it corrupts leaders absolutely. Perhaps, this is the reason behind instability. Political parties, especially the major ones, are not ready to learn from the past, mend their ways and develop a coalition culture for which leaders have to make adjustments with other parties, in the best interest of the country. Politics in Nepal appears to be treated as an enterprise where an entrepreneur succeeds if he takes the risk of investing even in unfavorable circumstances. If he invests and uses his maneuvering skills, his success is more guaranteed. It has been proved recently that success in politics depends on the art of maneuvering and the impossible becomes possible. In the last election, the Nepali Congress (NC) secured 89 seats (32 percent of total seats), the CPN-UML got 78 seats (28.36 percent) and the third largest party, the CPN (Maoist Centre) got 32 seats (11.63 percent) in the House of Representatives. But the third largest party is leading the government. This is because Dahal knows that the leaders of the first and the second largest parties can neither form alliances themselves nor can they form their own government without support from the Maoists and some other fringe parties. In such a situation, it was easier for Dahal to float his own candidature for premiership and bargain with the NC and the UML to accept his leadership. First, he approached the NC for forming a government under his leadership, only to find the largest party reluctant. Then he approached the UML, which accepted the idea. But then Dahal found relying solely on the UML support for his government not a very good idea, so he sought and got the support of the NC in the vote of confidence. Dahal courting the NC made the UML suspicious. As anticipated, Dahal ditched the Maoists’ alliance with the UML by supporting the Congress candidate in the presidential election. This was perhaps meant to maintain a balance of power in the parliament, given that the UML has already bagged the position of Speaker. Dahal perhaps hopes to be able to serve a full term by managing to keep the current ruling coalition intact. Let’s hope that our leaders show maturity by focusing more on political stability than on satiating their thirst for power.

Time has come to reform the existing electoral system that encourages rampant political corruption and use of money and muscle in election campaigns.

The current electoral system promotes contractors and moneyed men, whose undue influence in politics harm devoted and honest political workers with limited money and few political connections. Those in the latter group seldom get party tickets. That is why there is an urgent need to enact vital changes in the electoral system in order to revitalize democratic institutions and revive people’s faith in democracy. 

Now, the federal House of Representatives has 275 members. Under the mixed electoral system currently in practice, 165 members are elected under the First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) system, and the remaining 111 under the Proportional Representation (PR) system. Government formation is comparably easier under the FPTP system where candidates with the most votes are elected even without a majority. More seats are won with fewer votes.

Actually, many votes are not represented and go to waste. For example, in the 1991 election, the Nepali Congress secured 110 seats (53.66 percent) in the 205-member House of Representatives with only 36.74 percent votes, leaving 63.36 percent voters without any say in the country’s governance.

In a least developed country like Nepal where many voters are illiterate and poor, they are easily lured and intimidated by candidates. Likewise, caste, clan, ethnicity, and creed play important roles in winning elections. Money and muscle decide electoral outcomes. By the end of the 18th century, globally, the FPTP system started getting replaced by Proportional Representation (PR) system, and the trend continues.

Also read: Nepal’s remittance trap

Nepal, for its part, adopted the FPTP system in the 1959 parliamentary election, and continued with it in 1991, 1994, and 1999 elections. It only switched to a mixed electoral system in the 2008 Constituent Assembly elections. The new constitution followed suit, allocating different proportions of seats under FPTP and PR segments.

Nepal’s choice of a mixed system confirms that its leaders realize the demerits of the FPTP system. Most prominently, in a participatory democracy, election is all about representations, and so the PR system was incorporated, as greater representation under PR is a more ethical choice.

In the PR system, it is the party that gets the votes. It is a less expensive system with candidates not personally involved in the electoral process. Their credibility and integrity are not at stake. Candidates need not spend unlimited money because their election is not guaranteed.

The PR system has not been allowed to function properly in Nepal. Political parties hardly choose candidates fairly. Senior political leaders nominate their kith and kin under this category. Honest political workers are pushed to the margins.  

Money also plays a role in securing party nominations: Ironically, the ‘closed PR’ priority list can be tweaked to suit the leaders.

Also read: Nepal’s Tarai plains have a Chinese dream

Representatives elected under the PR system are looked down upon as they do not represent specific geographic areas and are, it is argued, not even people’s representatives. In the PR system, the link between elected legislators and their constituents is weak. Plus, the link between voters and their representatives is also tenuous.

A new hybrid system integrating the merits of the two systems while minimizing their demerits is warranted for countries like Nepal. In this system, proportionality under the PR system will decide the number of seats the parties get as per their national vote-share.

However, every candidate will be connected to a constituency in the PR list, where, to be elected, he/she will have to receive the most votes as per the FPTP system. The preference of candidates in the PR list will not guarantee his/her victory unless they secure most votes. This provides a better link between the legislators and the constituents. But getting most votes also does not guarantee election unless the candidate falls under the PR quota.

Significantly, under FPTP, candidates with the most votes will not be elected, as the seats available to parties are limited under the PR scheme. All parties will have seats in proportion to the national votes, their numbers to be determined as per the natural threshold. To have meaningful representation, different segments of the society like women, Dalit, Janajati will be prioritized.

In the integrated system, getting the most votes in a constituency will not guarantee victory, as the seats to be secured by the parties are limited in proportion to the votes received nationally under the PR scheme. If victory is not guaranteed, no one will spend big or think of using muscle-power.

The uncertainty of winning will not only deter candidates from spending unlimited money but also reduce political corruption. Moreover, with money no longer a concern, there will be more qualified candidates in the field. This will ultimately increase people’s faith in democracy.

Mishra is a former election commissioner