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Soon after Nancy Powell arrived in Kathmandu in the first week of August 2007 as the new US ambassador to Nepal, she reportedly had an awkward run-in with a Maoist leader. This was only months after the Com­prehensive Peace Agreement was signed in November 2006. The US State Department had still not removed CPN-Maoists from its ‘terror list’ the party was first enlisted in November 2002—fol­lowing the murders of two US Embassy guards. In her first weeks in Kathman­du, Powell was invited to a gath­ering in another western diplo­mat’s house. When she arrived, she walked past several guests shaking their hands. One of them happened to be Barshaman Pun, the current Minister of Energy and a former Maoist commander. As Powell was shaking hands with Pun, an American diplomat whis­pered to her that Pun was a Maoist leader. She reportedly withdrew her hand in shock and confusion. This story was the talk of the town back then.

The two sides have had a com­plicated relationship. While after 2001 the then Bush administra­tion divided the world into a binary system of ‘with us or against us’ around the ‘war on terror’, not everything fitted so neatly into this construct. The Maoists for their part railed hard against the Americans—calling them imperialists. But privately they sought a relation­ship. The leaked American diplo­matic cables by Wikileaks in 2011 show the range of the Maoists’ rapprochement efforts.

Baburam Bhattarai sent a series of letters to the US Embassy in Kathmandu in 2003. The embassy regarded Bhattarai as the party’s ‘most authoritative wordsmith’ and forwarded his missives to the State Department.

This was also the same period when the US complained about the Maoist attempts to isolate them diplomatically in Kathman­du, and accused other Western diplomats of playing into the Maoist strategy.

“The Maoists obviously are try­ing to apply this [divide and rule] tried-and-true method to split the international community’s potential opposition to their movement. Some of our col­leagues in Kathmandu, unfortu­nately, seem all too willing to be taken in,” Michael E Malinows­ki, the then US Ambassador wrote in a cable in 2003. “In practical terms, this has translat­ed into the Maoists’ singling out US-sponsored aid programs for ‘non-cooperation’.”

The arrival of Nancy Powell also signaled a departure from the policy pursued by her two con­troversial predecessors. But it was not until early 2008—following the results of the first Constituent Assembly elections, after which the Maoists emerged as the single largest party—that the US would publicly acknowledge meeting Maoist leaders. But it would take the US another four years before it would officially remove the party from the terror list.

The US-Maoist relationship has come a long way since. Prachan­da has travelled to the US several times. But have the relations been reset to early 2002 conditions under the new administration?

Spooked by Wangzhou?

The relation between the two sides has taken an unprecedented turn with the spat over Venezuela. There are several theories as to why Prachanda issued the state­ment. Was it aimed at his party’s co-chair and the prime minister; was it as a result of Venezuelan lobbying; or was it because tran­sitional justice issues spooked him? Many point to the recent statement by the United Nations and western diplomats as a trigger for the statement on Venezuela.

All these factors could have played a role. Dahal and the Mao­ist half of the ruling NCP are con­cerned by the sudden ‘aggres­sive’ US foreign policy posture in the past several months, in what seems like a pattern against communist governments—and one that has striking resemblance in terms of intensity to ‘Bush’s war on terror’: the escalation of trade war with China, the arrest of Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Meng Wangzhou, and the American hardline on Venezuela.

The Maoist leadership rightly feels that the invisible sword of transitional justice continues to hang over their head and that their enemies are out there to get them. They fear they may be arrested when they least expect it—similar to the fate of Huawei’s CFO Wangzhou. Is the US also try­ing to get the Maoists for the mur­der of the two embassy guards?

By publicly issuing a state­ment and railing against the US, Prachanda may be hoping to cre­ate a narrative that the former Maoists are martyrs not perpe­trators—if they are arrested on international soil.

Following the 2006 political changes, I have been continu­ously visiting various parts of the country. Before that, I used to make such visits to prepare for polit­ical movements. After 2006, I have been going to far-flung areas to find out what people are thinking about the big political changes. Every year of the past decade witnessed a sort of political uncer­tainty. In the initial years after 2006, there were concerns about the fate of the peace talks with former Mao­ist rebels. After signing the Com­prehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), and the subsequent promulgation of the interim constitution in 2007, we were worried about the prospect of the Constituent Assembly (CA) election—whether or not it would take place.

When the CA election was com­pleted, there was uncertainty about constitution-writing and I found that similar worries were echoed at the local level during my visits. Again, there were concerns about how to tackle the ethnic and caste issues that had emerged during constitu­tion-writing.

Amid the climate of uncertainty, we completed the major tasks of con­stitution-writing. Except a few issues that remain unsettled, we have han­dled the peace process almost per­fectly. Even on the remaining issues of the peace process, we are on the right track. Now, we have emerged from the visible and invisible politi­cal uncertainty the country faced in the past decade.

We tend to look at our day-to-day affairs, but if we see the larger picture we have also averted a big crisis in this period, which is a huge achievement. There are many coun­tries that have failed to tackle the issues Nepal handled successfully. Some of these countries are still reeling from religious and ethnic tensions even though they have resolved their political crisis. But Nepal successfully handled all those issues, which was not easy. This is another big achievement.

Another positive development is that we have successfully man­aged our social diversity through political arrangements, and the society is gradually accepting the change. Nepal’s status as a multi-cul­tural, multi-lingual and multi-re­ligious country has now been accepted both in the constitution and on the ground.

Diversity has gained widespread acceptance. In many countries, minorities are still neglected, and norms and traditions to manage social diversity are gradually break­ing down. But Nepal has been a unique case because we success­fully managed this diversity. Several times, we were on the verge of eth­nic and religious conflicts, but we were successful in averting them. Our constitution also provided a strong basis for the management of a diverse society.

 Another positive development is that we have successfully managed our social diversity through political arrangements

To grassroots democracy

Another encouraging devel­opment is the flourishing of grassroots democracy with the formation of local governments after a long hiatus. The issues of taxation, corruption and other mis­management at the local level have drawn our attention. Such issues must be resolved. At the same time, local governments and their lead­erships are relentlessly working to improve the health and education status of their communities. In this period, I met some local level lead­ers and found them eager to do something good in their constitu­ency. Despite the lack of resources, local representatives seem keen to undertake development works, which is a positive change at the local level.

Finally, when it comes to the per­formance of the incumbent govern­ment, in the past one year, it should have done more to institutionalize the federal structure. But we see lit­tle progress. Only now is the govern­ment forming various commissions to carry out the remaining tasks of federalism. But recent progress in related law-making suggests our provinces would be more functional in coming days. We have already met the constitutional deadline for formulating key laws required to implement the constitution. Yes, we could have done more, but the government is still on track.

People had high expectations from this government. Its failure to deliver has created a sort of pes­simism at the grassroots level. But there is still a silver lining because people have not given up hope.

We finally have a government with a strong mandate for five years. But it does not seem to be working with long-term goals in mind. Earlier governments were unable to think long-term because their tenure was always uncertain. But although this government has five years, instead of working for the people through­out its term, it seems confident it can influence the voters by its fifth-year performance alone.

Political decisions are not being implemented because we do not have strong and vibrant institu­tions. Every government wants to complete the national pride proj­ects and do something positive in health and education. Yet there does not seem to be any long-term strategy for this.

In its initial days, the govern­ment had made some good deci­sions, including ending syndicates in public transport and speeding up infrastructure development. But these initial initiatives have petered out. I suggest that the Oli government work to strengthen our institutions and come up with a long-term vision.

Nepal completed its democratic revolution quite late, at the fag end of the 20th century or the early 21st century. Such demo­cratic revolution was completed in Europe in the 19th century and in most other countries in the early 20th century. Because of this delay, we lagged behind the rest of the world by almost 250 years. Fortunately, we managed to more or less complete the revolution at the start of the 21st century. After the promulgation of the democratic republican constitution through the Constituent Assembly (CA), a new era has dawned in Nepal—an era of peace and prosperity.

Political parties are the articu­lators of people’s socio-economic needs and their aspirations. When the political agenda changes, the parties should either change their agenda and strategy as well, or reform themselves. Or they will lose their legitimacy. With this in mind, we founded the Naya Shakti Party. In my understanding, the Nepali Congress and the Nepal Communist Party were born out of the demo­cratic revolutionary needs of the mid-20th century. To that extent, they played a positive role in the country’s democratic process.

But now the agenda has shifted to socio-economic transformation. The question is whether the parties which played a lead role in the his­torical phase of political revolution can also play the same role in the course of the country’s socio-eco­nomic transformation. History has mixed examples. In some European countries where the democratic rev­olution has been completed or has deepened roots, the parties leading the post-revolutionary phase played a positive role in their country’s socio-economic transformation.

But in most third-world countries, the parties that led the political or democratic revolution have failed to deliver economic development. In Nepal’s case, the reason is that our political revolution dragged on for seven decades. It started in the 1950s but it compromised with the old establishment. Again, when there was political regression under the monarchy for 30 years, demo­cratic processes, values and institu­tions were destroyed.

 This is the time for our political leadership to wake up and deliver. I hope they do.

When multi-party democracy was restored in 1990, the parties again compromised with the monarchy in the making of the 1990 constitution. Then the Maoist revolution did away with the monarchy and ushered in a republic and a constituent assembly. But even the Maoist movement did not end in complete victory as it had to compromise with the old political parties (minus the monarchy now). So that way, Nepal’s democratic pro­cess was never deep-rooted. When revolutionary forces compromise with old establishment forces, they tend to be co-opted. This resulted in a hodgepodge of a transition system, which was a major hurdle for rapid economic development.

This is one reason why Nepal’s political parties have not been able to produce rapid socio-economic transformation. Another reason is geopolitical: our over-dependence on India and its non-cooperation on our development. Mismanagement of institutions, bad governance and rampant corruption are other rea­sons. Because of these factors, the political forces that took the lead in political revolution have not been able to deliver on the socio-eco­nomic front.

This has given rise to frustration among the youth, millions of whom have little choice but to go abroad for employment, and the country virtually runs on the remittance they send. Resentment is again rising in the society. So the political parties should remake themselves—trans­form themselves by learning from past and international experiences, and lead the country to peace and prosperity. Or new political forces will come forward and fill the vac­uum. We are now at the crossroads. Legally and formally, we have a two-third majority government and the country’s two biggest commu­nist parties are united. The unity appears strong and people have high expectations of them. But one year has passed, and they have not delivered. At the very least, they could have controlled corruption and strengthened law and order, even if they could not make radical economic progress.

As a result, resentment is grow­ing. I hope the ruling parties will introspect on their activities of the past one year and mend ways. If that does not happen, I see a seri­ous problem ahead, which will be exacerbated by the fast-changing geopolitical situation in the neigh­borhood. Both China and India are developing rapidly.

As they develop and get stronger economically, they will display a ten­dency to expand their market and encroach upon other territories. So Nepal is likely to be dragged by these two rising powers into their com­peting spheres of influence. Also, with rising contention between the US and China, Nepal is in danger of sliding into a vortex of a new conflict. There already are signs of a new cold war.

This is the time for our political leadership to wake up and deliver. I hope they do. But even if that does not happen, I am optimistic in that this is the era of democracy, of enlightenment, and of information technology, and that we cannot go backward. As such, I do not see any danger of political regression.

Again, if the political leader­ship fails to make a fundamental socio-economic transformation, the frustrated youth might again resort to another revolt. Before that happens, people like us who have played a role in this political change have to see the coming danger and reorganize politics in an alternative way, so that we can deliver on the socio-economic front.

The author is a former prime minister

4 In key appointments 

APEX Series

WOMEN IN POLITICS

1 In political parties

2 In the legislature

3 In the executive

4 In key appointments

5 Overall picture 

Currently there are five com­missioners (including the chief commissioner) at the Election Commission (EC), a constitutional body mandated to hold federal, provincial and local level elec­tions. Of the five, Ila Sharma is the only female commissioner. It’s ironic that the commission, which is responsible for ensuring the rep­resentation of 33 percent women in the national and provincial par­liaments and in political parties, is itself un-inclusive. The Public Service Commission (PSC), another constitutional body mandated to select public servants on an inclusive basis, also suffers from inadequate female represen­tation. Of its six members (including a chairperson), only one—Brinda Hada Bhattarai—is female. Both these key constitutional bodies, with the responsibility of implementing the nation’s policy of inclusion, are rather exclusionary.

Other bodies share the same fate. The Commission for the Investiga­tion of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) is another important constitu­tional body where the represen­tation of women is poor. Sabitri Gurung is the only female commis­sioner at the CIAA. The situation at the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) is also disap­pointing; of its six commissioners, Mohana Ansari is the only woman. No constitutional body in the coun­try is headed by a woman.

There is no official record of polit­ical appointments of women, but observers say the low number of female appointees is an old prob­lem. The government makes dozens of political appointments (besides those to the federal and provincial parliaments and to the cabinet), but very few appointees are women. This clearly shows the political par­ties’ disinclination to ensure the constitutionally-required represen­tation of women in state organs.

The situation has remained unchanged even after the promul­gation of a new constitution in 2015, the holding of three tiers of elections in 2017, and the formation of a gov­ernment with a two-third majority last year. Now, there is a tendency of appointing a token number of women just to show commitment to the principle of inclusion.

In the third week of January this year, the government recommended the heads of five commissions—National Natural Resources and Fis­cal Commission, National Inclusion Commission, Madhesi Commission, Tharu Commission and Muslim Commission. None of the five rec­ommended chiefs is a woman.

In letter, not spirit

These commissions were envi­sioned by the constitution to pro­mote an inclusive polity, but the approach taken to make appoint­ments to them is not inclusive. This is a clear violation of the con­stitution, whose article 283 says: “Appointments to offices of con­stitutional organs and bodies shall be made in accordance with the inclusive principle.”

When it comes to political appointments to other state appa­ratuses, women’s representation is nominal as well. The core idea behind having a certain number of female political appointees is to ensure adequate representation of women in important decision-mak­ing processes. Since women are severely underrepresented in political institutions, observers say due attention should be given to securing a minimum number of seats for women.

“There is a flawed understand­ing among our political leaders that women cannot take up lead­ership and carry out their respon­sibilities well,” says Manchala Jha, a member of the Truth and Rec­onciliation Commission (TRC). “If women are given an opportunity, they are fully capable of leading constitutional and other state bodies,” she adds. Besides Jha, the TRC has one other female member (Madhabi Bhatta).

The basic principle behind political appointments is recruit­ing experts in specific fields. How­ever, women with close connec­tions to political parties are being appointed and those without such connections are denied the same opportunities. In other words, polit­ical cadres without the necessary expertise are being appointed to important positions.

Observers say the appointment of women with political access and connection does not fulfill the basic principle of inclusion, and that women from marginalized commu­nities without political affiliations must get opportunities.

“Political appointments since the Panchayat era clearly demonstrate that women with better political con­nections are getting all the opportu­nities,” says Harihar Birahi, former President of the Federation of Nep­alese Journalists. Bihari, who has been closely following the country’s political developments for several decades, says women close to the monarchy were appointed to gov­ernment positions during the Pan­chayat period. “Right through the past five decades, capable women without good political connections have been passed over in favor of less deserving candidates with such connections,” says Birahi.

Old problem

There is no official record of the political appointments made during the Panchayat and the democratic periods. But very few women were politically appointed during the Pan­chayat era for a few reasons. First, the number of educated women during that period was very low and it was difficult to find the appropri­ate person. Second, few places were allocated for political appointments. Third, the concepts of inclusion and women’s empowerment were not firmly established and there was no pressure group to take up the issue of women’s representation.

Birahi says the Panchayat regime appointed very few women to gov­ernment bodies. “Now the space for political appointments has expanded, and there has been some progress in women’s representation but still not up to a desirable level,” he says.

Although there are enough qual­ified women now and sufficient space for appointing them, politi­cal parties are seemingly hesitant to do so. Even in offices that meet the constitutional requirement of female representation, the roles and contributions of women are not always properly recognized. There are complaints that women’s opin­ions are not heeded while making important decisions. Often women also carry the extra burden of hav­ing to go beyond the call of duty to prove they are as qualified as their male counterparts.

Ambassadorship is another area where the government makes political appointments. Accord­ing to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nepal has embassies in 30 countries, of which two—those in Oman and Japan—have women ambassadors who were politically appointed: Sarmila Parajuli Dhakal and Prativa Rana respectively. Rana, who is the mother-in-law of the Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba, was appointed by the previous government. Besides Dhakal and Rana, Sewa Lamsal Adhikari is a woman ambassador (to Pakistan), but she’s a joint secretary at the MoFA, not a political appointee.

Lucky Sherpa, who was serving as the Nepali Ambassador to Australia, stepped down a few days ago after being accused of human trafficking, although she has denied the charges. In 2012, Maya Kumar Sharma, who was serving as the Nepali Ambassa­dor to Qatar, was recalled over her objectionable remarks against the Gulf nation.

Disturbing patterns

Among those most recently rec­ommended for an ambassadorial position, the only woman is Anjan Shakya (to Israel). There is already criticism that Shakya was chosen directly under Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s order: The two are distant relatives.

The current pattern of ambas­sadorial appointments clearly goes against constitutional provi­sions. Article 282 of the constitu­tion says, “The President may, on the basis of the principle of inclu­sion, appoint Nepalese ambassa­dors and special emissaries for any specific purposes.”

In contrast, powerful countries are appointing female ambassadors to Nepal. Hou Yanqi is the new Chi­nese Ambassador to Nepal. Other countries have also appointed female ambassadors to Nepal. Egypt, Bangladesh, Brazil, Sri Lanka and China have female ambassadors in Kathmandu, as does the Euro­pean Union.

Besides constitutional bodies and ambassadorial positions, political appointments are made to public enterprises, which are under gov­ernment control. But again, very few women have been appointed to these bodies. And the heads of state-owned Nepal Television, Radio Nepal, Rastriya Samachar Samiti and Gorkhapatra Cooperation are all politically appointed males.

Political appointment is an over­looked issue in Nepal. Women leaders and members of the civil society haven’t exerted enough pressure on the government and political parties to ensure 33 per­cent female representation in polit­ical appointments. The current scenario is unlikely to change unless women leaders from across the political spectrum come together to build pressure. Similarly, the Public Service Commission should compel the government to ensure that at least a third of the political appoin­tees are women.