The Interim Council (IC) was conjured up to ensure early, free and fair elections. It has no other rationale of being in Singha Durbar. However, as weeks pass by, prospects of polls before the monsoons are starting to appear dim. Appearances are not always reliable indicators of intentions, but the return of officious dress and forms of formal address of an earlier era indicate that the IC is here to dampen people’s aspirations rather than speed up the pace of change. The bureaucratic team seems to be committed to established order and determined to manage affairs of the state according to hoary traditions, set rules, and prescribed procedures of the past.
In small towns and villages everywhere from Biratnagar to Birgunj in central Tarai-Madhesh, despondency is the defining mood. From minions of Mohan Baidya to cronies of Kamal Thapa, nobody seems to believe that elections are going to be held anytime soon. The frustration is compounded by the fact that there is no Prime Minister to curse and abuse from everyday pulpits of street-corner teashops. Chairmanship may have been a reassuring idea elsewhere, but in Tarai-Madhesh, the absence of a politico from the scene has created discomfort bordering on dread. The generation that has endured chairmen at the helms of government is still around to share its sense of foreboding.
In the parliamentary system of governance, Prime Minister is merely the first among a team of equals. King Mahendra assumed the chairmanship of the council of ministers in 1960s to steer the country towards planned development and guided democracy. The step was probably taken at the prodding of Cold War strategists that were terrified by the socialist wave sweeping through the newly independent countries in the 1950s. Tulsi Giri later became the second person to chair rather than lead the council of ministers.
Republica
Schemers of King Birendra were astute and succeeded in saving the institution of monarchy from possible embarrassments of having to own up failings of the government. During his long reign, the palace secretariat controlled all levers of state power without the king ever having to assume direct stewardship. Rather than walk in the bloodied sneakers of his assassinated brother, King Gyanendra decided to dust off his father’s antiquated boots and trample all over the country as an executive chairman. In the attempt to use an oversize and outdated shoes, Chairman Gyanendra fell off the Shah throne and lost the crown to the republican museum.
In the wake of Spring Uprising of 2006, Girija Prasad Koirala had a fair chance of reviving the idea of chairmanship once again. Steeped in the traditions of parliamentary democracy, he opted instead to remain the head of state as well as head of government but still be known as a mere premier. Along with responsibilities commensurate with power, humility is an important characteristic of greatness in politics.
The country is now officially a federal democratic republic. After enduring five premiers in as many years, political honchos at the helms were impressed upon to handover the reigns of the republic to the chief of the court machinery. Unlike political heads of government in the past, Khil Raj Regmi is the fourth Executive Chairman in the history of the country. The burden of office must weigh heavy upon shoulders of a person more accustomed to passing judgments than in carrying out arduous duties of running a flailing state.
The Old Guard
Regmi must be wondering whether the chairmanship of the IC is a reward of declaring the expiry date of the Constituent Assembly or the punishment of having been the arbitrator of the ill-fated legislature. If he succeeds in holding elections on the promised date, the glory would go to the high-level political mechanism for having taken a bold and well-calculated risk. However, if he fails in conducting polls within the stipulated deadline, the dishonor would be entirely that of his unconstitutionally created office. Like all previous executive chairmen in country’s history, Regmi is astride the tiger of an arbitrary order. Lure of the long ride is strong while incentives for dismounting are almost non-existent. The question then is rightly being asked throughout the country, but more skeptically in Tarai-Mhadesh, whether this government is serious about conducting polls at all.
It is not publically known whether Chairman Regmi had some say in conceptualizing and assembling his team. It is possible that head honchos of major political parties thrust their favorites upon an insecure head of government. If such be the case, then the captain probably lacks willpower and decisiveness necessary to steer the country through turbulences of a shaky transition. In case he chose his mates freely and independently, it speaks volumes about his political proclivities.
Inclusion should have been an issue while determining the criterion of recruitment into the IC: Those who set the terms must have known that it was not going to be easy to find enough Gazetted Special Class retirees from the marginalized, the externalized, the minorities, and the Dalit communities. The blame for setting such exclusionary conditions for appointment goes to politicos that sealed a flawed deal. The Chairman, however, is going to be solely responsible for the way his teammates perform.
The main problem with a government made up of “people like yourself and myself and the good people among whom we move”—an earnest desire of an ex-bureaucrat circulated through group emails sometime ago—is that they have little or no connection with the grassroots. Decades of confinement in the protocols of labeda-surwal have this effect of insulating people from the passions of the masses.
Poll ahoy
There is only one peaceful way to free the country from the clutches of the IC team: Force it to hold polls within the stipulated period. For the same reason however, the bureaucratic regime would try its best to postpone polls for as long as it can on one after another pretext. Public apathy strengthens their alibi.
Orchestrated legitimating drives such as plebiscites in the name of elections under authoritarian regimes apart, authentic polls require that visible figures of the state activate intense feelings among the electorate. Whitewashed bureaucrats may inspire some confidence, but they fail to arouse feelings of strong loyalty or passionate dislike. Voting out a bureaucratic regime is an insipid idea. Political parties are soon going to find out that it is not very easy to sell their agenda even to their own cadres, let alone the populace.
The combination of caste and meritocracy makes the bureaucracy of Nepal even more reclusive and reactionary than they routinely are. On the one hand, traditions of a hierarchical society hold that one’s lot in this world is determined by the deeds of the previous birth while on the other a popular belief in social stratification makes the elite claim that the place in the pecking order is a function of one’s own ability and effort. Little wonder, the PEON mindset is more attuned towards connections, relationships and networks than to aspirations of commoners.
The entrenched System has made its moves. The onus of responding with preparations of polls is now upon the political parties: The sooner they stop bickering and head for the hills and plains, the better for them and the country.
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