The Maoists, on the other hand, were rigid only on a directly elected president with major executive powers. The Maoist position was primarily contested on two grounds: powerful political leadership has high probability to corrupt into autocracy, and a certain individual leader, once elected, might keep the power for ever.
Now that democracy is guaranteed, focus has fittingly shifted towards the form of governance, an armor of the political system against chronic instability. Twenty governments in the last 22 years is not what the people had asked for and neither do they wish to see similar instability in the future.
Sources of instability, as demonstrated in Nepali experience proves, were embedded within the traditional multiparty democracy. In a system comprising of many political parties with distributed loyalties along regional, ethnic and organizational lines, fractured electorates are a given. Constant struggle among parties for larger say in power sharing leads to further schisms in bureaucracy, politicization of civil society and shaky economic outcomes.
India’s ability to hold together durable coalitions in the past decade may bolster those now clamoring for Westminster-styled governance. But the costs it entails are seemingly insurmountable for a country like Nepal. This is the reason a general understanding has evolved on presidential-premier system of governance, now popularly termed as the French Model.
Ask French people how vile entrenched political instability can be. Their previous constitution, the Fourth Republic, was introduced in January 1947. Until the current constitution, the Fifth Republic, was promulgated in 1958, 16 different cabinets came and went. The situation under Third republic was even worse. Within 65 years of the constitution, 93 different governments took office. Dejected at his attempts to bring stability to France, General Charles De Gaulle who introduced the Fifth Republic once said, “I have tried to lift France out of mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French.”
Strong president is the best bet for Nepal chronically marred by political instability.
The French penchant for new constitution also appears comparable to Nepal’s, the only difference being that the French exercise started centuries ago and the country is now bearing the fruits of this long experience. While the Fifth Republic is the 14th written constitution of the European power, we are still working out our sixth. And most importantly, the Fourth Republic that lasted only for eight years was drafted by an elected Constituent Assembly.
The form of governance we are trying to emulate actually came from a military general. Therefore, the important thing is not who introduces the constitution and how, but what are its constituents and how it is executed. De Gaulle was so frustrated with instability that he set the term of directly elected president at seven years. Only Jacques Chirac in 2000 thought it was little too much and reduced it to five years through a constitutional amendment.
In Nepal, a powerful directly elected president will bring political stability and maintain a balance between the proposed federal states. But leaving president’s election to a handful of “electoral college” members, as some have been proposing Nepal does, will only serve to undercut popular sovereignty. The president needs to be made accountable to the people as a whole, not to a bunch of selected temporary power elites who are highly vulnerable to horse-trading and political carrots. The electoral college as proposed will be rife for manipulation where 10,000-odd so called electorates or their block masters and power players will benefit while the people will be pushed to the periphery. Let the president’s ambitions be checked by equally strong legislature and judiciary.
It is not at all necessary to create a new intermediary elitist power line. A first-past-the-post presidential election for now gives every electorate in the new Loktantra a prestigious stake, a reason to vote.
The naysayers argue that the president, like in Sri Lanka, may anoint himself as a dictator once elected to office. But how on earth can we forget that it will be the people who will directly vote for the president every five years for constitutionally stipulated terms? And if it is people’s choice to repeatedly vote in an incumbent, so be it. The country is already at a shambles in the face of frequent government change, rampant bureaucratic transfers and blatant loot of taxpayers’ money. But if there are serious doubts about the intentions of any particular presidential candidate, a two-term cap can included in the constitution.
In the course of the six years of peace process, two distinct power centers have risen in Nepali polity. First, the Maoists emerged as the biggest party through its ability to mobilize mass and preempt challenges, as it proved in the Constituent Assembly election through judicious use of YCL. Second, there emerged a combination of parliamentary forces, civil society leaders and Kathmandu-based elites, which seems to have consolidated its position by extending unconditional support to the army.
The continued struggle for power between the two looks inevitable, with the Madhesi parties laying a claim to relevance through transient alliances of convenience.
Without a strong, directly elected executive head of the nation, this struggle will hinder evolution of functioning democracy in Nepal. In that case, Nepal is likely to be chronically assailed by instability for many years to come. The new constitution can stop this by ensuring two things. First, it can articulate the balance of interests as the constitution is going to be a document of compromise; and second, it can carve out a strong, directly elected president.
The writer is a political analyst with background in human rights research and training
Tika_dhakal@att.net
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