It would perhaps sound reactionary to say that the political parties are only proving to be necessary evils. Given the political parties we have in the county as our choices, it is disgraceful to know that in a democracy the alternative to political parties is political parties themselves. It is also beginning to feel like democracy inherently limits the human imagination to go beyond itself (democracy), something that is higher, broader and more sublime.
The peace process is nowhere and no one is in charge.
Forget the smaller ones. The first six major parties are not intact as organizations. The key peace process agenda of the head of the Nepali Congress is his daughter’s promotion in the cabinet. The key peace agenda of the CPN-UML party boss is to garner majority in the party politburo and central committee. The UCPN (Maoist) is fighting an internal war over whether peace should be their agenda at all or not. The war between revolution and peace is creating eternal ripples within the party and the party chief is pre-occupied with handling the internal matters so much so that whatever time he is left with, he spends thinking about the ways to come back and head the government. The three major Madhes parties are struggling within to keep the parties intact. It is natural that for all of them their respective parties come first and the peace process second. Because it is only so long as they have their parties within their command that they have some roles in the peace process. How fundamentally human!
There is so much rhetoric spent on how important politics of consensus is, at least until the new constitution is promulgated. No one would defend the need for consensus politics better than the politicians themselves who have failed to come together. Logically, it should have been the so-called civil society to create civic pressure in favor of an environment that compels the parties to come together. But, as everyone knows, the civil society itself needs mediators to come together even on events and occasions that hypocritically talk about saving the peace process. Words are losing value especially when they are used to refer to the politics of consensus. The feeling that our parties would come together finally in the last minute – before it is too late – is now becoming elusive by the day. It is true that there is no alternative to hope. But, in our case, it also sounds equally true that the alternative to current chaos is another round of chaos.
Just look at the way our national institutions are losing credibility. We have the president and the prime minister boycotted by the largest party in the Constituent Assembly (CA). We have a vice president, who has not taken oath in the prescribed language. And, like discussed above, we have party chiefs that are at war within their own parties. When the parties do not see eye to eye on crucial issues, the chairperson of the CA and the chairs of the thematic committees are just lame ducks as we have seen. In such a situation, who would ensure that the political process does not get derailed?
What irritates the most is when political leaders talk about consensus politics. The leaders better realize that the era of consensus politics is gone for now. This has saturated. This is no more realistic. Given the size and strengths of the different parties in the CA, talking about consensus is almost nonsense. What is and should be possible is abiding by the agreements and understandings that they have signed in abundance in the past. We do not need anything new. What we need is simply honesty of purpose. The lack of honesty, failure to fulfill commitments and abiding by what they have agreed on in the past is causing a gradual erosion in the credibility of the political parties on the whole. This will have a long-term adverse impact on democratic process and it is things like this that may give birth to a dictatorship.
So, what is the current status of the Nepali peace process? Where is it and who is in charge of the process? My assessment would be that it is nowhere and no one is in charge. As the festival of Dashain approaches, there is going to be another round of appeal and advocacy for the politics of consensus. But the question is: When there is failure to agree on specific things in a concrete way, what is the rhetoric going to do? A simple meeting, and then interviews to the media that the leaders have come to a “high” level of understanding, is definitely not going to regenerate people’s faith in the political process. What is required is a sustained implementation of what has been agreed upon and a committed demonstration of honesty. This, though, I know, will continue to remain just a wishful thought.
bishnu.sapkota@gmail.com
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