News reports say that the major coalition partners— CPN-UML and NC— are yet to agree on sharing of cabinet portfolios and the major sticking point has been NC’s claim to the ministries of water resources and local development. We have a question: what difference does it make to the NC if it doesn’t get one of the ministries? Or how much will it impact the UML if it concedes both ministries? From ordinary people’s standpoint, these are trivial issues which should not at all have blocked the cabinet expansion. Neither NC nor UML has come up with a plausible explanation for their insistence on these particular ministries. If the parties can delay the cabinet formation for so long for no legitimate reason what should the people expect of them? More precisely, why should people believe that they can forge consensus on key and complicated issues like writing the constitution and federalism? The circus –some euphemistically call it birth pangs — surrounding the cabinet expansion has dented public confidence in this government. Not that people had great expectations of Prime Minister Nepal. But whatever they had is eroding very fast.
Differences within the UML in nominating the ministers only reminds one of the Nepali proverb—Kahi nabhayeko jatra Haandi gaunma (Carnivals that happen nowhere else happen in Haandigaun). The UML now has three contenders for the post of home minister and each of them is backed by one of the top three leaders. Why? Why do the top leaders think that their own man should be at the helm at the home ministry? Why can’t they trust someone else from their own party?
All this shows how little institutionalized our democracy is, and how even less institutionalized the parties are. We don’t even seem to understand that a parliamentary system is essentially a prime ministerial system in which the prime minister has certain prerogatives— one such prerogative is the choice of ministers. True, in a coalition government he cannot chose ministers from the other parties, though we believe that he should be able to express his preferences so as to ensure smooth functioning of the cabinet. As for the choices within his own party he should have full rights to pick and choose, for it’s Madhav Kumar Nepal who will eventually be held accountable for the government’s performance.
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