In their first five-year tenure, local governments came into limelight for both good and bad reasons. Among the most prominent issues to hinder their functioning were disputes between chiefs and their deputies.

After the last local elections in 2017, women secured 91 percent of the deputy positions—deputy mayors in municipalities and vice-chairpersons in rural municipalities—while men bagged 98 percent of chief positions. This gender disparity certainly contributed to many disputes but there were plenty of other factors as well.

Different places had different root causes of disputes between the chiefs and their deputies. The local units with the chiefs and deputies from separate parties saw most disputes, as they jostled for influence.

Similarly, many places saw an unhealthy competition to take credit for development projects, as each tried to allocate more funds for his or her own constituency. In a classic case, Kathmandu Metropolitan City’s mayor Bidhya Sundar Shakya from CPN-UML famously clashed with deputy mayor Hari Prabha Khadgi from Nepali Congress.

They never had cordial relations. In April 2019, Mayor Shakya accused his deputy of deferring action against the traders who had allegedly encroached on Khulamanch, an open space in Kathmandu. A war of words ensued. Earlier, in 2018, the two had publicly clashed over Ranipokhari reconstruction.

In comparison, the local bodies with both heads and deputies from the same party saw fewer clashes. In Kavrepalnchowk district, all local bodies had chiefs and deputy chiefs from the same parties. “We have seen reports of clashes between the two executives in dozens of local governments but in our district there is relative harmony,” says Udhav KC, chief of the district coordination committee.

There is also a lack of clarity on individual roles and responsibilities. The Local Government Operation Act 2017 provides for many overlapping responsibilities, inviting interference in each other’s jurisdiction.

For instance, the deputy chairs a three-member Judicial Committee that is mandated to settle local-level disputes. But the chiefs have tended to poke their noses into such cases, as they feel entitled to do so.

Moreover, there is a sizable section of chiefs who believe the post of deputies is largely ceremonial as it is they who exercise all executive powers in municipalities and rural municipalities.

In fact, most duties of deputies are related to monitoring, supervision, and work-facilitation, with he or she getting to enjoy executive rights only in the absence of the chief.

Bansalal Tamang, general secretary, National Association of Rural Municipalities, says there have been efforts to clarify the jurisdictions of chiefs and deputies through orientation programs. “Initially, there was a lot of tussle. But with greater clarity over individual jurisdictions, most local-level disputes these days tend to be political,” he says.  

There have also been instances of the male chiefs questioning their female deputies’ work and education credentials. The Act envisions voluntary transfer of some power from the chiefs to his deputies but that is hardly happening.

In some other places, there have been disputes when the deputies asked for the same kind of facilities that the chiefs were getting.

The local bodies in (now) Madhes province saw most tussles between chiefs and deputies, as they were invariably from different parties. Prabhakar Yadav, Chief of District Coordination Committee Saptari, gives the example of the Chhinnamast Rural Municipality, where the municipal council has not sat in two years due to the internecine disputes between the chief and deputy.

Speaking to ApEx, vice-chair of Chhinnamasta Rural Municipality Usha Kumar Mandal confessed to her long-standing problems with chair Surya Naryan Mandal. “Our development projects and service-delivery have been badly affected due to the chair’s monopoly, and it is difficult for me to work as vice-chair,” she says.

There have been similar cases in local governments of Rautahat district. In Yamunamai Rural Municipality, the tussle between chief Shree Prasad Machida and deputy Gita Devi Sah has for years crippled the rural municipality’s functioning.

There are no mechanisms to look into the disputes between the chiefs and the deputies. This is one issue that must be resolved ahead of the next local elections. But till date the federal government seems noncommittal. Journalist Gita Chimoriya, who closely tracks local level disputes across the country, speaks of the urgent need to set up a mechanism that closely and continuously monitors such disputes and offers solutions.

“In the course of my study of local bodies, I have come across instances of nasty disputes. In some places, the chiefs and deputies do not even speak to each other,” says Chimoriya.

Basanta Adhikari, spokesperson at the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration, says resolution of such disputes falls under the jurisdiction of provincial governments, not the federal government.

Major duties of chiefs

·         Organizing and leading the meeting of the municipal executive committee

·         Presenting and endorsing the list of agenda in all meetings

·         Preparing annual budget and program 

·         Calling the meeting of Municipal Assembly

·         Overseeing and monitoring day-to-day functioning

(The chief has 12 major ‘concrete’ responsibilities)

Major duties of deputy

·         Coordinator of Judicial Committee

·         Coordination of programs related to non-governmental organizations

·         Coordination of activities related to consumer welfare

·         Monitoring, supervising, and reporting local government’s programs

·         Member of local resource estimation and budget ceiling determination committee 

(Deputy has eight, mostly ill-defined responsibilities)

Source: Local government operation Act 2017