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A draft directive whereby citizens can directly petition the provincial parlia­ment has been endorsed by the Province 3 provincial assembly. The passage of the proposal marks the beginning of a new practice in Nepal’s parlia­mentary system.

Rajendra Pandey, chairperson of the Draft Committee of Provincial Assembly Directive 2074 BS, comprising members of seven political parties represented in the provincial assembly, had tabled the proposal last week.

The draft states: “If any Nepali citizen resid­ing in the concerned province feels aggrieved by a decision of the Cabinet, the government or a non-governmental entity, he or she can directly petition the parliament, pro­vided the petition is signed by 100 Nepali citizens and approved by three members of provincial parliament”.

“It is a new practice in Nepal,” said Pandey. “Earlier, a complaint submitted by a commoner was discussed in the [national] assembly only if the parliamentary committee it was submitted to deemed it important enough”.

It was a long process. But now, “ordinary citizens have a quicker way to have their concerns addressed.”

By Krishna Saru Magar | Hetauda

Any lingering doubts over the sustainability of the left alli­ance, and with it the longevity of the new left government, have been removed with the new sev­en-point agreement between CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli and his CPN (Maoist Center) counterpart Pushpa Kamal Dahal. Or have they? The February 19 agreement com­mits to the formal unification of the two parties, with all outstanding ideological issues to be settled in the next general convention, whenever it is held.

Political analyst Bishnu Sapkota does not buy the argument that the two parties have now united. “There is no ideological coherence between them, and without it, there can be no true unity,” he says. “In my view this is a purely power-sharing agree­ment, nothing more.”

Sapkota says he would have been more convinced had the unification happened “bottom-up rather than top-down”. Otherwise, he ques­tions, “How is it possible that Oli and Dahal could settle everything between them without consulting party colleagues?”

Sapkota also thinks that Dahal and the Mao­ists, by agreeing to abide by the principle of multi­party democracy, as stipulated in the seven-point deal, have in a roundabout way accepted UML’s official line of “people’s multiparty democracy”. Otherwise, “there is no place for multiparty democracy in Maoism”.

Ideology aside, party unification was endorsed after Oli had already become prime minister. What, then, was the signif­icance of the new deal?

“With this agreement, the two main communist forces of the country have formally accepted that there is no alternative to mul­tiparty democracy,” says Nilamber Acharya, former chairman of the Constitutional Committee of the first Constituent Assembly elected in 2008. “This means they fully accept the new constitution, which is most definitely not a communist document.”

In Acharya’s view, consolidation of the two communist forces could pave the way for a “strong two-par­ty system” that in the long run will strengthen democracy. But Acharya too has misgivings.

“How can we be assured that so many ambitious political personas can remain under the same roof for any length of time, particularly when there is no shortage of forces that want the left unity to unravel?” he asks.

Political commentator CK Lal also suspects the longevity of this “unnatural” unity. “It represents the consolidation of the traditional power structure. The ‘Permanent Establishment of Nepal’ now has a potent political front,” he says. “It was the pressure from PEON that brought them together. But in time the differences among PEON will be more and more pronounced, which in turn could imperil the left unity.”

When the two communist parties had announced an electoral alliance on the eve of the provincial and federal elections, China, it was suspected in some quarters, had encouraged, if not abetted, the left bonhomie.

In Lal’s reading, the February 19 agreement is in part a result of “Chi­na breathing down the neck of Oli and Dahal”. Lal predicts that with the left united and Oli-led govern­ment firmly in place the “anti-India and anti-West lobby will be strength­ened while the pro-China lobby will get a boost”.

Irrespective of the degree of Chi­nese involvement, another pub­lic intellectual, Hari Sharma, also doubts the two communist parties have ‘unified’ rather than ‘merged’. “A merger takes place between two unequal forces, when one is clearly dominant,” Sharma says. “A uni­fication, on the other hand, hap­pens between two equal forces”. In this reading, too, the Maoists have agreed to be subsumed under the UML fold.

Sharma also sees some troubling signs for the new government. “If Oli was the prime minister of the left alliance, why wasn’t a single Mao­ist leader present at his swear­ing-in? In coalition politics, such absence is highly symbolic.”

Nonetheless, if the two parties are serious about future unification, it is a positive development for a country like Nepal, Sharma adds. “Social science literature suggests that a fragmented polity leads to radicalization of society. Strong, consolidated political parties miti­gate against such a danger”.

But strong parties have strong ideological bases. Does the new out­fit have such a robust base? “This is something that worries me. Accord­ing to the seven-point agreement, the new party will have Marxism-Le­ninism as its guiding principle. If so, we have to assume they adhere to the principle of democratic cen­tralism, the bedrock of Leninist philosophy,” Sharma says.

In its essence, democratic cen­tralism believes in a strong central political leadership whose deci­sions are binding on those lower down the party chain. Democratic centralism, for instance, is a constitu­tionally-man­dated governing policy of China. “Do the leaders of the new party have Chinese leadership in mind, then?” Sharma asks.

Such ideological and leadership questions have always bedeviled the communist movement in Nepal that started with the birth of the Com­munist Party of Nepal in Calcutta in 1949. Formed with the intent of overthrowing the Rana autocracy in Nepal, the movement became mired in controversy right from its incep­tion. When power was transferred from the Ranas to the monarchs, a faction of the communist party decided to coopt the monarchy, while the other faction pursued a strident republican line, leading to the first formal split in 1962.

This started the seemingly endless process of periodic breakdown and consolidation of Nepali communist forces. Given this checkered history, the doubts now being raised about the long-term viability of the new communist outfit, which is now in control of virtually the entire state apparatus, are perhaps valid. Even the two communist parties in the ongoing unification process have seen many mergers and splits.

If history is any guide, we may not have to wait for long to find out whether the February 19 agree­ment is a purely power-sharing deal. Or if Messrs Oli and Dahal (and their party rank and file) are committed to an ideologically strong left force and a vibrant two-party democracy.

There is no denying the wish of the majority of Nepalis though. They heartily endorsed the common ‘prosperity and sta­bility’ platform of the left alliance. 

Having secured the unification of the CPN-UML and the CPN (Maoist Center), the largest and the third largest parties in the federal parliament respectively, UML Chairman KP Oli has formally invited Upendra Yadav’s Sang­hiya Samajbadi Forum Nepal (SSFN) to join his government. Oli has hinted that he is open to the idea of amending the constitution to address the demands of the Madhesi parties.

The prime minister right now has the support of 174 lawmakers in the 275-member lower house of the federal parliament. Oli believes that if he can get the support of the two main Madhesi parties—Mahanta Thakur’s Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJPN) with its 17 seats and Yadav’s SSFN (16 seats)—then the leftist ruling coalition will have a solid mandate to govern for the next five years.

But the two main Madhesi forces have so far been non-com­mittal. When The Express wanted to know about the progress in his deliberations with the ruling parties, SSFN chairman Yadav was dismissive: “Oli’s government is all talk. So far it has made no substantial proposal that will convince us to join the government.”

Asked what the bottom-line of the Madhesi parties is, Yadav retorts that the bottom-line “has not changed in a long time.” He was primarily hinting at the old demand of the Madhesi parties that there be two Madhes-only provinces in the entire Tarai belt and that there be more representation from Mad­hes in the national legislature.

The Madhesi parties believe that voters in Province 2 trusted them so that they could make a strong pitch for con­stitution amendment. As such, it will be difficult for them to abandon the amendment issue. But it will be as difficult for the UML chairman to change provincial boundaries, as he reckons that his party won the elections by constantly ques­tioning the rationale for the kind of constitution amendments the Madhesi parties want.

Yet a kind of meeting-point seems to be on the horizon. RJPN leaders in particular say the UML and Oli have, after the elections, “softened on Madhesi issues,” as senior RJPN leader Sarvendra Nath Shukla put it. “So although we may not immediately join the government, we can still consider supporting it from the outside.”

An RJPN leader even hinted that his party could be flexible on the provincial boundary issue, thus far the biggest sticking point between the UML and the Madhesi parties.

Shukla for his part believes the UML has realized that it cannot ignore Province 2, “which among the seven provinces sends the most MPs to the national parliament.” Considering the softening of the UML’s stand, says Shukla, “Madhesi par­ties should also be ready to find common ground.”

Kathmandu: A meeting of the out­going Council of Minister on Feb­ruary 15 concluded that the cabinet formed under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba had fulfilled its goals. The cabinet meeting held at the official residence of the prime minister at Baluwatar thanked all those who had supported the government, said outgoing Minister for Water Supply and Sanitation, Mahendra Yadav. The meeting also concluded that the government had been successful in its main task of holding local, central and provincial-level elections. RSS