G.P. Koirala, the leader of the Nepali Congress Party, is back as the country’s Prime Minister. After weeks of demonstration, Nepalese King Gyanendra decided to hand over political power to the civilian authority by reconvening the parliament that he unceremoniously dissolved early 2005. People across the globe celebrated the victory of People Power in Nepal.
I hope that this victory would lead to concrete democratic gains. Nepal has suffered so long from deep poverty and a protracted insurgency, the latter partly a result of dissatisfaction over the monarchy’s strong political and economic influence in the country.
Caution, however, should be exercised. The ball is now in the hands of the ruling Nepali Congress Party and its ’split’ sister, the Nepali Congress Democratic. The international community has a role in pressuring both parties not to make mistakes as they did when they were still under one party.
There are three inter-related issues that the ruling government has to seriously tackle. The first, needless to say, is the role of the monarchy in the country. The second is the Maoist insurgency. The third, perhaps equally crucial but curiously ignored by many, is the need for reforms in the ruling Nepali Congress Party (NCP).
The first issue deals with the fact that the monarchy, even before King Gyanendra, has repeatedly ursurped powers that should be left entirely under civilian hands. This is also the root of the Maoist insurgency that has left hundreds dead.
Why King Gyanendra had been so bold in undermining civilian rule can be also traced to the weakness of the previously united Nepali Congress Party. For instance, when then Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba was sacked by the King, the NCP leadership, especially GP Koirala, was suspiciously slow in condemning the unconstitutional act. The feud between Deuba and Koirala was already dividing the party at that time, but for Koirala not to extend his support to Deuba betrayed his own desire to be appointed by the King as Prime Minister. Koirala now faces the challenge of clearing up a mess that to a certain had been his and his party’s doing.
How the new government will strive to limit the powers of the King, and to what extent, will also influence the fate of the peace talks with the Maoists, which supported the street demonstrations against King Gyanendra and have called for the election of a Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution that would limit or remove the powers of the monarchy. The Maoists have employed terror in the past and have inflicted some of the worst human rights violations in the country (a close competitor in this regard is the royal army).
Despite the violence and barbarism that defined the Maoists employed in achieving its political goals, they still command a certain degree of support from the general population because of government ineptitude, corruption in the mainstream political parties, and the dilly-dallying of the major political institutions with the monarchy. To end the insurgency – or to cripple it, depending on one’s political persuasion – the government must be able to deliver crucial reforms, among them the broadening of civilian powers vis-a-vis the King, curbing corruption, providing basic social services in rural areas, reforming the military and shunning a militaristic approach in solving a primarily political problem like the insurgency.
Are these reforms possible? Yes, but it requires reforms in the major political parties, too, especially the Nepali Congress Party. Reconciliation with Deuba’s faction, the Nepali Congress Democratic, seems a little difficult, but it still has to be reconsidered, if only to balance the rightist tendencies within the Koirala-led NCP. Koirala has run the NCP as if it’s an old family dynasty, and that has to stop. Corruption, too, has to go. Otherwise, like the habitual crying of the crows in Kathmandu, history would just repeat itself.
