It has been over five months since Nepal's Constituent Assembly (CA) was dissolved and yet, no political resolution appears to be in sight. There has been talk of holding elections in April next year. But for this to happen, it is crucial that the parties reach an agreement on doing so within this month. After that, it will be too late.
There are many matters that need to be taken care of before elections are possible. For starters, it will be necessary to devise an electoral law. Anyone who remembers the negotiations over the election law before the 2008 elections knows that this is no easy matter.
There will likely be protracted negotiations over whether the electoral system should be first-past-the-post or proportional in nature. If it is decided that it will be a mixture of both, parties will have to decide over the proportion of each. And, most controversially, there will be disputes about quotas for marginalised groups. Additionally, there is likely to be controversy over constituency delineation and other matters.
It is thus widely acknowledged that no elections will be held in April next year if an agreement is not forged by the end of November. Some think that one way out of this mess is for the president to take action. He should, it is said, remove the current prime minister and appoint a new government in its place. But this too is a source of disaster.
The president's legitimacy to dismiss a government, let alone appoint a new one is questionable. If he takes such an action, the Maoists will hit the streets and try to radicalise their base. There will be no question of an agreement being reached in the near future. Rather, the government will become much more dysfunctional than it is now. Such a step by the president is sure to ensure that no elections are held, nor any progress on the constitution made for at least a few years.
The task for parties is to reach a compromise on elections by the end of this month. But this looks increasingly unlikely. If elections are postponed indefinitely or to 2014, there will have to be a major overhaul of how politics is done in this country. There is widespread disillusionment with how party leaders have hijacked the political process. Unable to make any progress, they have been holding the entire country hostage.
Such a situation cannot continue if elections are postponed. More attention has to be paid to crucial matters that have been neglected so far but which affect the population - matters such as local governance, for example.
Perhaps they can decide on holding local elections - though, like everything else, it's hard to see parties agreeing on a common roadmap. Yet, mechanisms to ensure greater participation of the population in the affairs of the state have to be found. At a time when the only elected representative body, the CA, remains dissolved and an increasing number of constitutional bodies are on verge of being defunct, the parties have to find ways to deepen democracy.
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Article source: http://www.thethailandlinks.com/2012/11/13/nepal-years-go-by-in-political-stalemate/
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