The leaders of all major political parties, including the Prime Minister Sushil Koirala are artlessly repeating the same statement: 'We will complete the drafting of the new constitution within a year'; as if it is just the next day of the second Constituent Assembly (CA II) elections. They do not seem to realize a bare fact that exactly a good half of the year since these elections in the November last has elapsed without scoring any success in any front -- governance, diplomacy, legislation or constitution writing. The worst of all, lately things are hopelessly falling apart so as to making both the government and the CA once again hostage to essentially unnecessary bickering at the highest political level. Thanks to dysfunctional prime minister, over-bullying major coalition partner CPN-UML and non-cooperative, ever-apprehensive and confused main opposition UCPN Maoist.
Every possible executive decision is postponed without any tangible reason. In six months, the cabinet couldn't pick up twenty-six names to be appointed as CA members from among putatively the national 'elite' personalities. The process of appointing of more than one and half dozen of ambassadors in important missions including New Delhi and Washington DC couldn't even begin. In absence of timely decision of Constitutional Council headed by the prime minister himself, the Supreme Court is left with mere five judges out of almost normally functional twenty positions. Ironically, the appointments in the prime minister's secretariat and National Planning Commission were not made in time. Almost all constitutional bodies too remain vacant. The advertisements published to fill in those constitutional positions like the commissioners in the Public Service Commission, National Human Rights Commission and the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority, by a sort of free competition is not attracting any dignified figures. They are most likely to be filled by typically clerical minded ex-bureaucrats rendering these crucial institutions, once again, retrograde.
The government is backtracking from the vowed commitments like holding local elections by this month (May). The parliamentary party leader of the major coalition partner CPN-UML, K P Oli from the hospital bed in New Delhi in mid-April declared that the local body elections will be held only after 'promulgating the new constitution'. Apparently, his statement didn't come in consultation with the prime minister who still reiterates, though not convincingly, to hold these elections, may be by June end. The reasons cited not to hold the polls are clearly unpalatable. 'There is not enough time now to hold them before monsoon,' said Oli. But nothing had stopped the government announcing it right after taking the oath of office. Clearly, there was no political will to take-up this issue in the right earnest. The second argument, which is abetted by the UCPN (Maoist) too, is that the concentration in the local elections would take the focus off the constitution writing process. It sounds as if the CA proceedings are now going at the right direction as per the popular expectation. Unfortunately, this is not the case, which, thus for all practical purposes smells rat in very faith of democracy of these leaders.
And, more importantly, it will not be as easy to hold local elections immediately after completing the draft of the constitution as claimed by the UML and UCPN Maoists. The reasons to it are obvious. First, it is highly unlikely that the constitution drafting process will be completed anytime soon. Even some form of draft is agreed upon, say in a year from now, the most likely scenario is that it cannot be promulgated without going into more costly exercises like referendum. Therefore, postponing local elections now means that they are postponed again for an unforeseeable future, which indeed is highly unfortunate. The common people now need the local democratic institutions in place far more than the constitution, which indeed is the largely esoteric proposition for them compared to the elected local government next door. Once again the democracy has been ditched.
The public speeches of the Deputy Prime Minister Bamdev Gautam from UML sound as if his party is not a junior partner but a majority government that has 'mercifully' appended the Nepali Congress to be its partner. In all these orchestra of fools, the Prime Minister Koirala remains as faceless as ever. When the country desperately awaits his bold and speedy decisions in more than one front, he seems to have chosen to cover his absolute non-performance by cheap publicity stunts of forsaking some allowances and perks and avoiding five-star hotel accommodations. Such tantrums cannot be substitute to the aspired effective delivery of goods from the chief executive of the nation. If Koirala had real intentions of giving a clean and effective government to the nation and upholding the democratic practice, he should have guts to tell his coalition partners not to nominate ministers that were not the elected members of parliament and those who are the kiths and kins of the influential leaders of the fringe parties.
Both the CA and legislature parliament have been rendered equally non-functional. In over four months, CA has failed to elect the subject committee conveners that are supposed to be key to formulate and moot respective constitutional provisions for discussion in the House. The chair of the crucial constitutional committee in CA remains vacant as of these lines were written. The CA virtually has not been given any business. Attendance in the scheduled meetings is so low that many of scheduled House sessions are often cancelled for lack of presence of minimum required number of members known as 'quota'. Even the orientation of the (new) CA members about their roles, responsibilities and duties was not thought necessary.
The legislature parliament too is equally ineffective. Not only it has fallen short to ponder over the bottlenecks that the country is faced with in absence of laws in many spheres, it has also failed to pass a number of important bills that are gathering dust in wait of votes for years. The new bill on Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has further estranged the Maoists from supposedly collaborative political process. The former jungle warfare Maoist guerrillas who are in favour of nothing less than blanket amnesty to them in the guise of 'wartime issues' are highly apprehensive of legal action on many of them if the bill is allowed to pass as proposed by the joint committee of political parties. If the bill is made law as in the spirit spelt out by UML leader Oli, the Maoists' rank and file may crumble like house of cards in legal battle on crime against humanity. 'Except for the deaths at the frontline, those involved in killings by dragging out persons from their beds at the midnight, killing them by plucking out the eyes, amputating the body parts and hanging or burying them alive cannot be put off the legal purview', he thundered a few weeks ago. He sounds fairly reasonable. But will that bring about solution to the political stalemate? Or, will this bill actually become an Act and implemented accordingly? These however are more pressing questions altogether.
The Maoists have already begun their non-cooperation by boycotting even entirely unrelated political processes in protest of the current form of the TRC bill. It may be recalled that such a commission was part of the Comprehensive Peace Accord of 2006, thus a crucial part of the peace process. The formation of it was deliberately avoided during the past CA tenure of four years when the country saw two Maoist prime ministers in the period.
The another bone of contention has become the so called High Level Political Committee (HLPC) that was in existence during the last CA, and was considered largely responsible for derailing the due CA process; making it hostage to ever-elusive political consensus. Interestingly, the three major parties -the Congress, UML and Maoists did appeared to have agreed about a couple of months ago to revive it. But, when the UCPN (Maoist) supremo Pushpa Kamal Dahal insisted on being the convener of it, other parties took it as his ambition to be a 'super' prime minister and wanted to thwart the process. The constitutionality of this mechanism has always been under the interrogation mark and its actions in the past surely undermined the elected House.
All forms of slackness, inactions, procrastinations, machinations and squabbles have been highly taxing for the country. The perils are pronounced. The economy is in absolute tatters. New investment is not even trickling in. Governance and public service delivery have collapsed. People are exasperated for unnecessarily prolonged political transition. The hope of at least relative consolidation of democratic institutors after the Congress and UML jointly got majority in the House is now waning rapidly. The constitution writing process is still precariously fragile. Only solution to all these ailments is to act and act fast. The lead should unquestionably be taken by the ruling alliance and the prime minister in particular.
The writer is former editor of Aarthik Abhiyan National Daily.
