The decision to remove from draft constitution the provision of new elections to local level bodies within six months of promulgation of the new constitution is unfortunate. The provision was apparently removed after UCPN (Maoist) objected to it. Local polls, in its reckoning, would be 'costly' and 'inappropriate' before the final map of federal Nepal is ready. The Maoist reservation, in reality, is motivated by much baser political calculations. After the drubbing it received in the second CA elections, the party is clearly not confident of its prospects in elections of any kind. Otherwise, this is a shameful volte-face for a party which, just like Nepali Congress and CPN-UML, had promised to hold local level elections within six months of the second CA elections in November, 2013. But to be fair, perhaps Congress and UML would also have objected to local polls had they been as badly bruised in the second CA polls. With this kind of blatant duplicity, no wonder the political parties are fast losing the trust of the people.We are not concerned about who first proposed inclusion of local polls within the six months of new constitution in the first draft. Whoever did it, it was the right decision. There have been no local elections in Nepal for the last 17 years; the local bodies have been without elected office-bearers for the last 12 years. This absence of elected officials has been badly felt in the aftermath of the Great Earthquake. The all-important role to be played by elected local officials in relief and reconstruction is the reason almost all of Nepal's major donors repeatedly emphasized timely local elections during the recent International Conference on Nepal's Reconstruction. Since most of the reconstruction money is to be channeled through local bodies, donors are not assured that their help will reach the intended beneficiaries since there will be no elected officials they can hold to account. The argument that local polls will somehow 'dilute' the federal agenda is also misplaced. Since VDCs and wards are the smallest governing units in the country, their demarcations are unlikely to change much however the country is federated. Moreover, since the names and boundaries of future federal provinces will be settled after the promulgation of new constitution, given the glacial pace of the constitutional process so far, it might easily be another couple of years before conditions are deemed 'right' for local polls.
Nor do cost concerns appear credible. Most of our bilateral and multilateral donors have already expressed their willingness to fund local polls. Local level bodies are people's first (and often the only) direct point of contact with government. These are the bodies responsible for construction of local schools, health centers and roads. The absence of these vital elected local bodies for such a long time can thus be seen as willful curtailment of people's democratic right to an effective and accountable government. We suspect Congress and UML agreed to postponement of local polls because the current arrangement at local level, whereby the spoils are evenly divided among local political actors, suits them just fine. This kind of undemocratic collusion among political actors, motivated purely by self-interest, shows how immature our political parties are as democratic forces.
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