Fresh from leading the Nepali Congress back to the helm as the largest political party in the country, Prime Minister Koirala also announced, as pledged in the party’s election manifesto, to ensure that the Nepali people have their hands on a new Constitution of their own writing within a year’s time. Another pledge made by the government led by Koirala was to hold the local body elections within the first six months, also promised by the NC as well as all other political parties in the fray in the second CA elections in November 2013.
However, six months passed and there was no sign at all of the local body elections being held. As it had happened following the first CA elections, the ruling parties wanted it while those in the opposition, especially the UCPN-Maoist and the Madhesh-based parties did not dare face the public again in such a short time after being relegated to an inferior position in comparison to the first CA elections. Many also interpreted their loss as the rejection to their proposal of dividing the country on the basis of ethnicity.
So, since it was the majority of the opposition that did not want the local elections, the blame for not sticking to the ‘within six-months’ pledge did not fall on the leadership of the government i.e. on Prime Minister Sushil Koirala. And after the initial milestone of six months passed, it was no longer an issue for the major stakeholders, with apprehensions by now large on the likelihood of also surpassing the twelve months deadline for a new constitution.
In the meantime, the parties had not had made any significant progress in the constitution-making process. The parties were exactly at the point where they had last left when then Prime Minister Dr Baburam Bhatarai announced just before the clock struck 12:00 pm on 27th of May 2012 that the first ever Constituent Assembly of the country was being dissolved without promulgating the new constitution. Furthermore, with new players like RPP-Nepal into the field, many already agreed issues too came up for fresh debate and some were even overturned. With major parties’ seats in the new CA suffering an overturn of numbers, the deadlock was more than expected.
Thus, the parroting of the ‘new constitution within a year’ by all the political leaders and their parties was gradually subsiding with the calendar heading towards the end. To make matters even worse, with around a month to go before the deadline expired, instead of sorting out the contentious issues the ruling parties and those in the opposition were indulging in a never-ending fight of consensus versus the due (majority) process to adopt the new constitution. The ruling parties stressed that since the self-proclaimed deadline was coming to a close, the new constitution had to be promulgated even by following the due process while the UCPN-Maoist-led opposition alliance argued that it would be against the spirit of the Interim Constitution 2007 to not have the new constitution based on a consensus. The differences even boiled out to the ‘ugly and unruly’ incident that took place inside the CA in January 2015.
Now that the one-year landmark had crossed, fingers began pointing at Prime Minister Sushil Koirala, who had declared to hand over the keys to power after the new constitution was promulgated within a year. The same pledge however is believed to have coaxed the CPN-UML to join hands with the NC to form a post-CA-II coalition government. “It was you who said one-year and it’s over, time-up”…was what everyone was indicating to the PM, right from the coalition partner UML (with a PM-in-waiting) to the opposition factions within his own party (with a couple dreaming of shifting base to Baluwatar). Of course, PM Koirala was not the only one to be blamed for having failed to produce the new constitution in one year’s time. Nevertheless, as head of the largest political party in the CA and also the leader of the government, one would argue that he had a greater share in the elusive ‘consensus-based’ drafting of a new constitution.
Unperturbed however by the calls to step down after the incubation period of one year was over, Prime Minister Koirala continued to stress for a consensus-based constitution and shared his mantra of ‘give and take’ among the constituent political forces to reach to that goal that remains elusive of the Nepali people since the past 65 years. He had however not elaborated what he exactly meant by the terminology and how would the trade-off of give and take actually take place.
The Prime Minister meanwhile also continued to stress for a consensus-based constitution even though there was relentless pressure from within his party and his coalition partners to push for a majority-based constitution. And that confidence of Prime Minister Koirala finally paid off and to the surprise of many and finally as a sigh of relief to the Nepali population jolted by the April 25 Gorkha earthquake, a consensus was at last achieved among the major political forces to give Nepal a new constitution.
And as many leaders and insiders have revealed it was Prime Minister Koirala’s final nod to the eight-province model that actually put the final stamp on the 16-point agreement that has provided the foundation for getting the country out of this long, tedious and tiring process of drafting the main law of the Nepali land. Prime Minister Koirala’s diplomatic mediation skills had won many accolades at home and abroad for materializing the symbolic handshake between the Indian and the Pakistani Prime Ministers to give a fitting close to the 18th SAARC Summit that he played host to in November 2014. And apart from validating his skills of bringing warring parties to a consensus, Prime Minister Koirala is certain to leave a legacy behind when he successfully leads the country to being governed by a constitution that the people have ever written by themselves.
With Prime Minister Koirala looking forward to paving the way for a new national unity government with the promulgation of the new constitution, the onus will now lie on the leaders to follow him to live up to the promises they make before their constituents and to the nation as a whole, as it is only with a statesmanship like that of Koirala that will lead us to a new Nepal that is equitable, inclusive and prosperous. RSS
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