Carter for Nepal’s crisis

Yubaraj Ghimire

 

Former US President Jimmy Carter is visible once again on Nepal’s uncertain political scene. Last week, he called three major actors — Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal, Maoist chief Prachanda and Nepali Congress president Sushil Koirala — asking them to do everything to have the new constitution delivered and the peace mission accomplished. The two left allies, Khanal and Prachanda, said they are doing everything in that direction, but Koirala blamed the duo of trying to impose their agenda on the rest and putting the peace process in jeopardy.

Carter is intimately linked with Nepal’s peace process and he knows the constituent assembly’s failure to deliver the constitution will discredit him as well. In April 2008, Carter, as head of the international observers’ team, had issued a certificate that the election was free and fair. Carter’s frequent visits to Nepal were apparently not endorsed by the US government; but the Carter Centre that he heads and his image were an asset to the international donors involved in a big way in post-conflict Nepal’s development and peace process.

But as Carter appears on the scene after a long gap — at a time when the radical left alliance has assumed power — and promises his support for the timely delivery of the constitution, the election commission has come out with startling facts that may raise questions about the fairness of the election that Carter had certified in haste. The election commission, which is revising the electoral list, has now come to the conclusion that the full size of the electorate then — 17.6 million — was faulty, and the figure three years down the line would be slightly above 13 million. Apparently, those who had died or migrated continued to figure in the list and votes were cast in their names.

The election commission, packed with representatives from major political parties, and the donors’ community were unanimous in their assessment that the election was part of the peace process, and that any type of election should take place in order to institutionalise the peace process and changes of the 2006 people’s movement. Now the same logic is being advanced by the same group, albeit with much eroded moral authority, that any type of the constitution should be delivered within the stipulate time frame as it alone would be institutionalising the changes.

Carter’s appeal is not cutting much ice this time and the fairness of the election nearly three years ago has come into question now. And there is growing opposition to the move to have “any type” of constitution delivered by May 28.

Maoist leader and Deputy PM K.B. Mahara said recently that the delivery of even an incomplete constitution would be a way out to address people’s demand. But there are no takers and there are still many crucial issues to be thrashed out among political parties. The Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists

(UCPN-M), the largest party in the House and the dominant partner in government, is still busy mobilising its militant cadres, nor have its 19,000 combatants been disarmed.

Nepal’s Chief Justice Ram Prasad Shrestha came out openly against the decision of the sub-committee of the constituent assembly to have a “constitutional court headed by the CJ to make final interpretation of the constitution as something that would go against democracy”. The UCPN-M had agreed to this provision reluctantly, giving up their earlier demand that the judiciary must be accountable to the legislature and that the final right to interpret the constitution should rest with the legislature.

While these complexities continue to stall the smooth journey towards the constitution-making process that has increased the distance between the pro-democracy and radical left forces, the status of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) remains uncertain. Nepali Congress chief Koirala said the recent accord between Khanal and Prachanda, in favour of setting up a separate outfit of the Maoist combatants to be treated at par with the state security forces, was a dangerous move to let a political party retain its army at the cost of the state.

“The two must scrap the accord and be guided by the CPA” as a condition for the Congress’s cooperation with them in the peace and constitution-making process, Koirala said. The scrapping of that accord would take away the very basis of the Maoist support to Khanal. That means Khanal has to decide between the completion of the peace process and statute delivery on one hand and retaining power at the cost of the former on the other. Carter perhaps understands this predicament of the Nepali actors — and hoping for too much from the radical left, keeping at bay the democratic forces, is not going to work any longer. Appeasement of the militant left seems to have lost its magic in Nepal now as the politics is getting sharply polarised once again.

(Courtesy: Indian Express)