Nepal facing “many threats”
KATMANDU, Nepal - A year ago, it looked like this mountain kingdom beset by royal murders and Maoist insurgents was finally headed for better times.
The rebels agreed to lay down their arms and take up politics, ending a bloody civil war that had cost 12,000 lives over 15 years. The army was in its barracks and the unpopular king, who rose to the throne after a royal massacre by a nephew, had ceded power to a national parliament. Nepalis were assured that they soon would be voting for an assembly to draft a new democratic constitution.
But now elections have been delayed indefinitely as Nepal’s political parties scramble for the upper hand in determining the shape of the country’s new government. Ethnic rebellions are flaring in the country’s neglected south, and hard-line Maoist fighters, fed up with their treatment in disarmament camps, are threatening to take to the streets.
“This is a complex phase of the peace process,” said Martin Chautari, a political analyst and researcher in Katmandu. If the country doesn’t manage to hold elections soon, “there are many threats,” he said, including the emergence of new separatist movements throughout the hugely diverse nation of 28 million sandwiched between regional giants China and India.
Nepal’s fitful push toward democracy hit a low point in September, when the country’s former Maoist insurgents backed out of an interim government charged with bringing about elections to create a new constitution. Maoist leaders said they were frustrated that two of their key demands - the immediate declaration of Nepal as a republic, to forestall any return of the king, and a proportional election system - had not been met.
The country’s traditional parties quickly pointed out that they already had agreed to 20 elements of the Maoists’ 22-point plan and that the former rebels had twice reversed themselves on wanting a proportional election system. They also accused the Maoists of trying to sabotage the elections out of fear their limited popularity meant they would win only a tiny share of the power they had hoped to achieve by laying down arms.
The squabbling, which culminated with elections planned for Nov. 22 being postponed indefinitely, has persuaded many Nepalis that the country’s politicians have lost sight of the bigger goal - cementing peace and stability - in their bid for the biggest share of Nepal’s political spoils.
The country’s top political leaders “want Nepal to change as long as they stay at the top,” charged Gagan Kumar Thapa, a youth leader in the dominant Nepali Congress party and a leading democracy campaigner.
“We need real statesmen now who can think above their own interests and their party’s own interests. We are all in the same boat,” he said. “But no one will sacrifice anything for the country.”
The risks of Nepal’s political stalemate are substantial. In the country’s southern Tarai plains, which border India, disenchantment with years of colonial-style rule by the country’s mountain-based political elite has led to widespread strikes and demands for greater autonomy and more political representation in Katmandu.
After 30 people were killed in clashes in the region early this year, the interim parliament agreed that Nepal’s proposed new constitution would make the country for the first time a federation of regions and that the Tarai, home to 35 percent of Nepal’s population, would get the political representation it deserved.
But election delays and the government’s apparent reluctance to deliver on peace accords it has signed have spurred growing disillusionment in the Tarai, where protests started by local leaders recently have also attracted armed thugs bent on taking advantage of the unrest.
“If you can’t hold a credible election there, you can’t hold a credible election in Nepal,” warned Kieran Dwyer, a spokesman for the United Nations Mission in Nepal. One of the biggest disputes standing in the way of elections is essentially a technicality: whether the country’s elected representatives should be chosen through a “proportional” system, intended to reflect the country’s diverse makeup, or through a system that combines proportionality with traditional direct voting for individuals, regardless of their party affiliation.
The Maoists, who initially wanted proportionality, then dropped their demand, are now again insisting on it, hopeful it will better represent Nepal’s minorities and boost their vote totals. The dominant Nepali Congress party, filled with old-style populist politicians who have built strong personal followings, reject full proportionality, arguing it limits voters to choosing parties rather than directly choosing leaders.
Their bigger fear, nearly everyone agrees, is that such a system would lead to them losing many of their seats and perhaps their dominant position.
The country’s interim parliament, which last week resumed talks aimed at ending the various stalemates, hopes to reschedule constitutional assembly elections for early next spring, politicians in Katmandu said.
Just as important, analysts say, the body needs to begin delivering on its promises to the country’s disaffected, particularly the disarmed Maoists, who are growing frustrated while waiting for support payments and jobs.
Without such movement, hard-liners among the Maoists, whose party looks increasingly like a coalition of splinter groups rather than a cohesive whole, could take to Katmandu’s streets in protest, potentially sparking a violent showdown with Nepali security forces.