--By Achyut Wagle

 

Finally, the new coalition government has taken a shape. But it took complete three months since the second elections to the Constituent Assembly (CA-II), on 19th of November, 2013. Prime Minister Sushil Koirala who first allegedly agreed two weeks ago to entrust Home Ministry portfolio to its potentially unavoidable coalition partner, the CPN-UML, had flickered and temporarily back-tracked on this commitment; once he got sworn in to the post. It invited a nasty public exchange of diatribes between the leaders of the ruling Nepali Congress and major partner, the UML. But, if he wanted to save his government, Koirala had no other viable alternative to succumbing to UML demands of Home Ministry to be led by none other than the 'big muscled'  UML Vice-chairman Bamdev Gautam. Koirala's space of political maneuvering was further tapered by complete non-cooperation from his own party colleague Sher Bahadur Deuba which compounded the task of giving a complete shape to the government. The perception of insecurity in Koirala was not unfounded. He indeed was apprised of the potential danger by those who have knowledge of informal level of intimacy between Deuba and UML Parliamentary Party leader K P Oli. Unlike Koirala, who hardly suffered any mention-worthy length of jail term during the panchyat days, Deuba and Oli for years spent in the same prison cell. And, now they share same wavelength of banter and modus operandi of 'practical politics' of money, muscle, maneuvering and machinations. 

 

As the bare arithmetic in the House has it, Nepali Congress doesn’t have any other option than placating the UML unless it had chosen to appease both UCPN (Maoists) and Rastriya Prajatantra Party Nepal (RPP-N) to sum up to the magic number of three hundred and one to save the government. But, the latter option to materialize involved a lot of ground-work and maneuvering, yet disposing the possible coalition always to walk on the razor-edge. Nonetheless, given the track record of the UML, the Maoists and the RPP-N would perhaps have been relatively easier bed-fellows for Congress. Yet, it is mere a conjecture.

 

This unpleasant episode of Home Ministry row at the very initial days of the Koirala-led coalition has three clear indications. First, Koirala as the prime minster has very little flexibility than resorting to the politics of give-and-take. Second, he takes hard stances at wrong turnings, the only consequence of which is to back-track rather humiliatingly, virtually in no time. Third, no party is reading the crucial arithmetic of the House before resorting to high-pitched verbal bashing in a political reality that is mandated for nothing but a coalition rule.

 

Why is the Home Ministry such a big controversy in every stage of government formation? Not only in the cross-party power sharing as is now, there are instances even when a single party majority rule, the portfolio is contested to the extreme among the aspirants. There may be some political arguments forwarded by its minister-aspirants to bag the post, but the craving is rather a political anti-thesis. This time around, Gautam could convince his party that the party would perform better if he became the home minister. The Congress aspirants who stopped Koirala from conceding the ministry to UML have had similar claims. Essentially, these were just the premonitions to destabilize and debase democracy by advocating straight rigging in the elections, misusing the state machinery. But the current political values of Nepal seem to have, unfortunately, accepted is as part of the game. If we evaluated history, any such impact of altering election results or adding the political clout of the party awarded with this portfolio, however, are mere perceptive fallacies. The reality is something different.

 

The Home Ministry is a marrying point of politics with crime. Apart from possible corruption avenues, the minister will have unhindered access to unearmarked security expenses under titles like 'for intelligence operation' and 'FADA' (financial assistance, donation and awards). Being the joint head of the civil administration with extensive quasi-judicial rights at the district level represented by the chief district officers (CDOs) and of two police organizations ensure the incumbent a stream of incomes in enormous sizes. Such lucre comes from every source you can think of, or may be even beyond that, including the contrabands, counterfeits, smuggling, extortion and human trafficking. Therefore, it is not any surprise why every ex-home minister has a noted underworld operator under his protection and some parties have even given them seats in the party central committees. That is that.

 

In his entire political career, Koirala's main working strategy has been the procrastination of the crucial decisions. This old habit of his doesn't seem to have died, even though he is the prime minister now. At his personal level, indecision comes in two forms; he doesn't read any file to be decided upon, it depends on some of his 'trusted' lieutenants to do the job and brief him. And, he doesn't 'trust' those briefings too and begins to investigate whether there could be any vested interest involved of the person who briefed thus. And, the safest he finds is not to decide anything. This is not a desirable quality in any chief executive, that too of Nepal in these pressing hours when many important agenda await decisions, rather sooner.

 

 

The phrase 'within one year' becomes a wont in tongue of all major politicians in the coalition. The initial promise was to write and promulgate the new constitution within a year from the date of the CA elections-II. It is now the fourth month running since and parties are signing so called agreements to deliver a constitution again, within a year. The understanding between the two major coalition partners, Congress and UML, to shuffle the prime ministership after a year makes us apprehensive. Implicitly, they are saying shamelessly, that the constitution will not be written within a year from now on. The intentions are not honest.

 

For now, Koirala's quest for corruption-free governance is a task impossible in view of the coalition made shaky by severe intra-party wranglings and factionalisms in both of the major ruling parties. Gautam at the helm of Home Ministry is sure to let loose all possible 'channels' of illegal trade in gold, currencies and goods. He proudly repeats 'one year in the ministry is enough to finance the personal politics for a decade and even larger benefit to the party in the longer-term.' It is not difficult to foresee that Koirala would helplessly witness the drama of the ministers who behave more smartly than himself, albeit merely in their vested interests. Technically, he cannot afford to break the coalition. In practice, he cannot assert designs due to his meekness. And, politically he is a redundant deadwood who doesn't enthuse with vision and mission of his own, and keeps on bungling processes as he did in forming the current government.

 

He has severe diplomatic drawbacks. He is not 'wholly' trusted by the southern neighbour. There was a point in history when he was alleged of having connections with the people with dubious backgrounds like late Jamin Shah and the likes who were suspected of mobilizing funds from suspicious sources. The West is apprehensive for the same reason as India is and China knows 'very little' about him as their official press points out. Therefore, his identity crisis couples with his crisis of confidence to run the government.

 

It is not difficult to see that even the second CA election has not taught any lesson to our leaders. Therefore, the priority is still being given to power-sharing games than to writing of the constitution. As pointed out by UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Puspa Kamal Dahal that constitution is 'unlikely' to be written even by this CA appears to be self-fulfilling. The priorities of the coalition partners are different from constitution writing. The Oli-Gautam duo in UML wants to exploit every possible benefit of being in the government to win the party presidency for Oli in its national convention slated for coming May. There is even a widespread concern that the local elections now considered for April might be pushed further away due to the convention to elect new executive.

 

There are enormous challenges and externalities. Leaders like Dahal and Kamal Thapa of RPP-N would be happier to see that this coalition failed, just because they wanted to prove that no one is better in terms of delivery. Being in the government is perhaps the sweetest part of the cake. When the process of finalizing the provisions of the new constitution actually begins, demands and impediments from outside of CA are likely to rule the roost. Madhesis, janjatis and pro-identity federalist have plans of forwarding their agenda through protests on streets to incorporate them in the constitution; ignoring the fact that they were largely rejected by the voters. The moves of Maoist-Baidya group could even be more irksome.

 

The only good sign is that the two largest parties in the CA have been able to form a coalition. A couple of other fringe parties have come to their support. Ideologically, the coalition is perhaps the closest-- best explained by their unconditional stance on ballot-based democracy. Above all, the coalition commands more than two-thirds of majority in CA and the Legislature Parliament.

 

But the prime minister must develop a habit of deciding things than only being a meek onlooker. And, the work on constitution writing must now begin without any further delay.