Shame on you, Maoists

President Dr Ram Baran Yadav has prorogued the House session as per the request of the cabinet and the government has decided to bring the budget through ordinance on Saturday. This move has been prompted by the Maoists, who have gone too far in disrupting parliament and blocking the government from tabling the budget. The Maoist lawmakers have disgraced themselves and parliament as well by manhandling Finance Minister Surendra Pandey and other ministers and lawmakers. The Unified Communist Party of Nepal(Maoist) has shown crude immaturity and breathtaking lack of responsibility over the issue, as over many other issues confronting the country.



After resisting presentation of the budget in parliament for months under the pretext that a caretaker government cannot bring a full budget, the Maoists had finally agreed, during the last round of talks held at Gokarna Resort, to cooperate fully on the budget. On Friday, a day after President Dr Ram Baran Yadav agreed to suspend some clauses of the constitution to facilitate budget presentation, the Maoist leadership backtracked on the agreement and argued that suspension of the constitutional clauses would set a wrong precedent. This morning the Maoist leaders came up with a new demand, that the budget be tabled through the normal procedure, which would require at least five more days before the government could table it in the House.



However, after hectic negotiations throughout the day, Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal agreed to allow the government to bring a full budget. He said that his party would only register a symbolic protest. By breaching that understanding the Maoists have once again proved that they are not to be trusted. There was no alternative to bringing the budget as the economy is teetering at the brink of strangulation. After two years of robust growth, revenue collection has taken a nosedive; there has been hardly any spending on vital infrastructure and social services; and the government would have to defer salary payment to its civil servants if the budget continues in limbo.



The unfortunate and unexpected turn of events in parliament now raises serious questions about the future course of Nepali politics. How will politics unfold in the days ahead has become all the more uncertain. This new development can undo the little trust that the parties had been able to restore among themselves through several rounds of talks during the past one month. It’s likely that both sides will now harden their stances and negotiations and agreements will become less possible in future. We therefore urge the parties to maintain restraint, and especially ask the Maoists to be more rational and responsible to find a negotiated way out of a political deadlock which has gone too far and can threaten our very sovereignty.

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Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame on Nepal