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2 Nepal leaps into the
unknown By Dhruba Adhikary
KATHMANDU - Seeing is believing. The maxim
holds good when the situation around you is
normal. What Nepal is facing today is anything but
normal. This perhaps is the reason Nepalis are
reluctant to believe in what they have seen in the
past week.
Live television pictures showed
former Maoist rebels taking an oath "in the name
of God" as members of an interim legislature. It
was an incredible scene, and amounted to an
epoch-making event. But people at large are yet to
be fully assured about the peace process. To them,
the transition to a stable democracy
remains arduous and
unpredictable. Whether this perception will change
for the better once Maoists become part of an
interim government in about two weeks is once
again a matter of conjecture.
In their bid
to make the first day of the 10th month of the
Nepali calendar year 2063 (January 15) a
red-letter day, leaders of the governing alliance
of seven parties as well as the Maoist leadership
decided to scrap the 1990 constitution and put an
interim statute in its place. Together with this,
the leaders agreed to dissolve the 205-strong
House of Representatives immediately after it
adopted the new constitution.
The vacuum
then was promptly filled by a 330-member interim
legislature. The leaders did manage to complete
the job in one day but failed to do it
satisfactorily, leaving room for questions on the
legitimacy of the measures taken in the context.
The draft of the interim constitution, for
instance, had attracted amendment resolutions for
corrections and changes in 57 of the 164 articles
that make up the constitution.
Prime
Minister Girija Prasad Koirala assured the
outgoing Parliament that amendments and
adjustments would be taken care of by the interim
legislature itself. A brief but pithy speech by
the ailing octogenarian prime minister convinced
the deputies that it was far more important to
bring gun-toting rebels into the democratic
mainstream than anything else.
Nobody has
found any basis to doubt Koirala's credentials or
his commitment to democracy. All present in the
legislative chamber agreed to pass the statute
even if they were aware that it contained
provisions that could turn the prime minister into
a dictator.
"All we did on that day was to
help keep the passage to the Parliament open for
Maoists," said Rajendra Mahato. "Our reservations
and differences on the constitution are still
alive."
There is a consensus that the
document called the interim constitution is in
essence an agreement full of compromises. And this
has been adopted in haste, primarily to take the
country quickly to the polls to elect a
constituent assembly that will write a proper,
comprehensive constitution.
The event was
seen by some as a series of political faux
pas. First, though the constitution was put
into force 15 minutes before midnight, it was
deemed to have taken effect from the start of that
day. Similarly, exercising the power of head of
state, Koirala administered the oath of office to
the chief justice of the Supreme Court on the
following day. Constitutional lawyers expressed
surprise as to how Koirala could perform this job
before he himself had taken the oath as prime
minister.
Despite these "historic"
developments supported by seemingly well-meaning
agreements, doubts persist about the Maoists'
intentions. Their senior leaders have chosen to
stay away from the legislature, saying they are
needed to keep the Communist Party of Nepal
(Maoist) functioning. At the same time, the Maoist
leadership has staked a claim for the post of
senior deputy prime minister, someone who would be
able to succeed Koirala, whose frail health and
advanced age continue to be matters of concern.
Recent events and trends provide a reason
to believe that what Maoists are doing now is to
make use of the platform that party-based politics
has to offer.
"We have not renounced the
principles of Maoism," leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal
(aka Prachanda) said to a radio interviewer on
Wednesday. A day later his deputy, Baburam
Bhattarai, told another radio show that the
decision to be a part of the legislature must not
be understood to imply that Maoists have finally
entered the parliamentary system. Their words and
deeds clearly reflect the tactical adjustments
they have made for the time being. Maoists appear
adept in cashing in on the prevalent confusion and
apparent contradictions.
One example
surfaced when the Maoist leadership got a chance
to nominate 10 people to the legislature (where
they already had 73 party members) from society at
large. One of the people they picked was an army
general who retired four years ago from what was
then the Royal Nepal Army. Nomination of retired
Major-General Kumar Fudong as a Maoist nominee
became a sensational issue, which some security
analysts think could further demoralize the army
when the country is sliding toward widespread
violence and anarchy.
But Fudong told Asia
Times Online that he has never been a Maoist party
member, and the reason he accepted the nomination
was that it provided him a forum for his views on
issues pertaining to national security. Maoists,
in the meantime, got an opportunity
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