Nearly 10 months into the protracted political deadlock ensuing from the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly last May, there is finally a breakthrough with the establishment of Chief Justice Khil Raj Regmi led election government. Yes, this was not the most desirable option. But since the big parties were not able to settle on a political candidate (or even a neutral one) for such a long time, the final agreement on CJ-led government is still a welcome development. It has spelled an end to the unaccountable Bhattarai government which proved to be utterly incompetent to hold new polls. Now there is a genuine prospect of election. There is a lot of bad blood resulting from the CJ’s appointment. In order to clear the path for new polls, the parties have had to compromise on the hallowed and inviolable democratic principle of separation of powers. Predictably, this has not gone down well with the legal community. Big sections of Nepali Congress as well as CPN-UML remain unconvinced too. So are the Mohan Baidya-led CPN-Maoist and other smaller parties.
For broad legitimacy, it is important that maximum effort be made to take the disgruntled voices into confidence going into CA polls. Encouragingly, none of the political parties (or the legal fraternity) crying foul at the CJ’s appointment are opposed to CA polls per se. They all understand that timely CA election is the one and only outlet to the current crisis. What they differ on is the means towards that goal. If the four major forces adopt an accommodative stance, it should not be very hard to bring the smaller parties around—provided that they can be convinced there will be polls by June end, which is barely three months away. There will always be some spoilsports that will try to thwart polls, as happened in 2008. But if there is broad enough consensus in favor of election, they can be successfully sidelined.
There is so much to do to clear the path for June polls. As per the agreement between four forces, the poll date might be deferred until November if unforeseen circumstances hinder June election. But postponing polls will be flirting with disaster. Khil Raj Regmi is a non-political actor, who, unlike political leaders, is not used to dealing with pressures from vested interest groups. The longer the current impasse drags on, the harder it will be for him to tolerate the pressure that will build on his government, not the least from the skeptical legal fraternity. Thus preparations for June polls should start on a war footing, starting with vital appointments at the Election Commission. Since free and fair CA election is the one and only mandate of the CJ-led government, it should not get bogged down in other issues.
Regmi will need unswerving support of at least the four main political forces to lay the ground for June polls. The political parties should be careful that their pre-poll posturing does not mar their united support for election government. Again, there might be certain forces that do not agree with the method, but no democratic force can argue against going to the people at a time of national crisis. Rather than get into an endless debate over the legality of the CJ’s appointment, time has come for all democratic forces to focus on the ultimate goal of new CA polls to draft a constitution for the federal democratic republic of Nepal in keeping with the spirit of change ushered by the 2006 Jana Andolan.
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