Prime Minister Crisis

Prime Minister Crisis

Garbage Politics By-product

Dwarika Pd. Shrestha

It is unbelievable that the Constituent Assembly (CA) became failure twice to pick up an elected Prime Minister from the elections held two times earlier on 21^st and 23^rd of July from the CA members formed two years ago. Now the CA has fixed another date of 2^nd August to conduct the third election of its type. Will the leaders be successful this time to elect the 34^th Prime Minister to the Country? There is time yet to wait and watch it.

It is obviously true that the politicians play a political gimmick just to grab the power of the country. Thus, many of their activities are aimed simply to hold the power or the powerful chair of the country/ nation being the President or the Prime Minister depending on the political system prevailed. “Politics is a dirty game”, so the political philosopher has said.

Nepal is badly looking for 34^th Prime Minister at present because; the 33^rd Prime Minister Mr. Madhav Kumar Nepal has already stepped down from the post. He was badly charged as a failure in maintaining peace and doing anything for the national welfare during his tenure. He was asked to tender his resignation by the contemporaries, help form a new government of National consensus, and to write a new statute by time. Madhav Kumar Nepal had tendered his resignation on 1^st July about 26 days ago. President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav, though gave his assent to the resignation, suggested Mr. Nepal to stay in the Government as a caretaker unless the new Government formed. In other hand, the President had also asked the CA to recommend a name of a new probable candidate for the post of the Prime Minister and lead a new Government by consensus.

In the context of forming a new government of consensus, the President, after consultation with many political leaders considered 7 days time to the leaders to develop consensus among themselves and come with new suitable proposal of a new government of consensus. After completion of 7 days the President extended the time for 5 days more. The party leaders were completely failure to develop the consensus among themselves even after 13 days. So the CA had no other option but to pick up the Prime Minister from voting system from CA members. With this view in mind, the CA ordered its members to propose a name of probable candidate for the Prime Minister ship from their respective party and face the election scheduled on 21^st July.

Names of the senior leaders of three large parties Mr. Puspa Kamal Dahal or Prachand, the Chairman of UCPN Maoist (UCPN-M), Mr. Ram Chandra Poudyal, the Vice Chairman of Nepali Congress (NC) and Mr. Jhala Nath Khanal, the Chairman of CPU/UML were fielded as the probable candidates to contest the election for the post of 34^th Premiership of the country from the side of their respective parties.

Puspa Kamal Dahal, Prachand’s name was proposed by Dr. Babu Ram Bhattarai, and was seconded by Narayan Kaji Shrestha, both Vice Chairmen of the UCPN-M. Ram Chandra Paudyal’s name was proposed by senior leader of NC Mr.Sher Bahadur Deoba and was seconded by Messrs Kul Bahadur Gurung, and Bimalendra Nidhi, another senior leader and exe- Member of NC respectively. Similarly, Mr. Jhala Nath Khanal’s name was proposed by Madhav Kumar Nepal, care taker Prime Minister and was seconded by Mr. Bishnu Poudyal,a member of CPN/UML.

While proposing and seconding their candidatures, all of them had pleaded that their candidate will work for building national consensus, national welfare and maintain peace in the country. Because they had realised that the peace and national welfare and national consensus of the country were badly in threat. The politics prevailed since last two and a half decades had endangered them very badly.

The first election held. No one of the three candidates elected. Because out of 25 political parties being represented in the Assembly, 22 parties which included 4 Madhise Morchas, Rastriya Prajatantra Party and other, regarded as small parties abstained in the Election or didn’t take part in it. The CA is composed of 601 political party representatives. 599 members were present on the occasion and two were yet to fill up. According to the Constitution Act No.38 sub-act 2, the proposed candidate for the Prime Minister ship must secure 51% of the total votes of CA members or 300 votes at minimum. In the meantime, Mr. Jhala Nath Khanal, CPN/UML candidate for new Prime Minister had said, “he won’t take part in the election if he could not get support of two-third of the total CA members”.

The CA fixed another date of 23^rd July to conduct the second election, but of no use. In the second time election, since CPN/UML leader Mr. Jhala Nath Khanal had withdrawn his name from the contest, only two candidates Mr. Prachand of UCPN-M and Mr. Ram Chandra Poudyal of NC were in the field of contest. At this time, the CPN/UML along with other 22 small parties abstained in the election. None of the two could secure the majority of votes in the second time also and elected Prime Minister. Thus, the Prime Minister crisis remained as it was.

The small and under developed country Nepal had been awakened to Democracy in 1950-51, more than 6 decades ago. Thirty-three senior party leaders have become the Prime Minister of the country one after another in different times. After the death of many of the senior leaders of the parties like late Mr. B P Koirala, Mr. Ganes Man Singh and other of NC; late Mr. Puspa Lal Shrestha, Mr. Mana Mohan Adhikari and Mr.Madan Bhandari and other of CPN/UML; the country was left to new leaders to look after since 2 and a half dedcades last. The constitution wrote in 1990 was made invalid. They prepared an Interim Constitution instead to follow on. That caused a great bad luck to her. Many of these leaders being power craze and less concerned to the country’s welfare could not had their system controlled. Not a single political party could stand longer time in the Government though that was formed under the response of their respective party. So, the political instability raised unexpectedly high. The shortage of consumers’ goods, sky rocketing market price, looting, threatening and killing of innocent had threatened the security of the people. As a result, besides the political situation all other aspects like - the University, Colleges, and Schools in the field of Education; the Hospitals, public medical clinics in Health; and the Govt. administrative units and the like were turned into a common platform or playground of the people. Lack of administration, lack of proper leadership, and management, lack of discipline and law and order was felt everywhere. Consequently, it seemed that these parties/leaders were simply bargaining for their own turn to sit in the power chair and bag a big share of resources of the country. The party leaders could not be aware of the fact that their misdeeds cost the faith and trust of the people and of their own voters and the future of the country. In other words, those leaders which ever they belonged to – the new or old party were playing only garbage game of politics in order to hide their weakness while in power, showing that their Govt. had properly managed the dumping of the garbage in the site.

The senior leaders though were seen very serious towards the deteriorated situation of the country in words, found contradictory in deed. They were failure to develop consensus and convince other. Mr. Prachand and Mr. Ram Chandra Poudyal were Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister earlier in the former Governments led by their respective party at different times.

The people have tested almost all the leaders available in the market of Nepali politics so far by their performance in the field. On top of that, the people today are more conscious and sensitive politically. They have understood the term of Democracy pretty well. Until and unless the political parties and the so called leaders change themselves by their attitude, thought, understanding and strategy towards the country and the people, they can’t succeed in politics here. People know nothing more than the freedom, security, good education and opportunity to work – in a Democratic Environment at large.

(The Article was written on 25^th July, 2010,Sunday)

Mr. Shrestha is a senior Journalist.