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Out of This Political Standoff What Do Nepali People Demand?

Prakash Bom - 6/27/2008

People are fed-up to their nose with the political parties´ dirty politics, particularly of Nepali Congress party. People no longer want dirty politics that creates imprudent and self-contradictory standoffs. Because no matter how the political parties set it up the game for their bargaining chips for the power it has always bred double standard. Their indiscreetness in decision making processes goes against the mandate of people and their own commitments to the competitive electoral democratic practice. It is obvious that the dirty politics causes political standoffs.

For example, as per the political consensus of the main political parties the provision of the constitutional president was set as the head of state and supreme commander in chief of the army who can impose the emergency as per the recommendation of the government cabinet. But the prerequisites that who can be the nominee of the president – non-political or political and how the nominee (s) can be appointed – by the Constituent Assembly vote or by the main political parties´ hand-pick appointment are missing unscrupulously. Therefore, such a political consensus must be termed dirty politics of poor and ill minded politicians.

That´s why Nepali Congress´s proposal of interim Prime Minister GP Koirala for the first constitutional president was widely rejected from within the nation and Nepali Diasporas around the world. As a result, Maoist party has been compelled to change its own criterion for the president and now has come up with the non-political proposal. Similarly, the nomination of the president by hand-pick appointment with the major political parties´ power of political consensus prior to the vote of the Constituent Assembly was widely disapproved too. Consequently, six member panel of main political party had to recommend the proposal for the election of the president for amendment.

Now people demand that the candidate of the constitutional president must be non-political and the nominee must be elected by the vote of the Constituent Assembly. All political parties in the Constituent Assembly have right to nominate their candidate for the competition if the political parties failed to make political consensus for the nomination of a qualified non-political candidate. The Maoist party´s preferred candidate Ram Raja Prasad Singh as non-political candidate, who has no vested personal, familial and party interest and as first publically declared republican intellectual personality has the probability to get wider support.

People demand that political leaders such as GP Koirala, who have vested political interest for their party, family and themselves, must not be nominated. For this reason northern American and European Nepali Diasporas do not prefer GP Koirala´s nomination for the position of the first president. Therefore, such an opinion poll has determined that a political leader with the vested personal, familial and political interest cannot be the candidate.

People demand Interim Prime Minister GP Koirala´s resignation to pave the way for immediate formation of a new government under the leadership of Maoist party with the Constituent Assembly´s simple majority. The longer GP Koirala takes for his resignation the quicker he and his Nepali Congress party lose their credentials from the politics of Nepal.

People demand People´s Liberation Army integration into the Nepal Army on the basis of the credential of each candidate. Those PLA combatants whose credential is less professional to be integrated in Nepal Army must be integrated in the Armed Police Force which should be transformed into the state troops of the federal states of the federal democratic republic Nepal under the current tentative plan of the restructuring of the state. People demand that there should be understanding on the PLA integration on the basis of the federal state restructuring plan.

In terms of returning seized properties of people by the Maoist as per the preconditions of Nepali Congress party the confiscated properties such as agricultural lands of the farmers who own less than 4 bigha or 9 commercial acres should be immediately return to farmers who can cultivate the land themselves. But those agricultural lands of the landlords who own more than 4 bigha or 9 commercial acres and who need to rent land to landless farmers for the cultivation should only be return with 4 bigha or 9 commercial acres to landlords. The rest of their lands should be distributed to the qualified landless farmers on the basis of intensive agriculture method to increase the gross national productivity. This has been the struggle of landless farmers for centuries and all previous governments of Nepal had failed to establish it.

People demand that the Maoist must return properties including agricultural lands that are under the Maoist party possession to the people or to their legitimate owners. Agricultural lands of feudal landlords who possess more than 4 bigha or 9 commercial acres and are under the Maoist party possession must be redistributed to the qualified landless farmer who can cultivate their lands on their own with the intensive agricultural methods.

People demand that the structure of the constitutional and security councils must not be ideologically political, but it should necessarily establish the national security as per the norms and principle of democracy without violating civil liberty and civil rights of people. It must observe strictly the international accord of Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Therefore, people demand that neither Nepali Congress party nor Maoist can stick to their demands. Nepali Congress can not set unnecessary preconditions without their pragmatics for their logical conclusions. Similarly, Maoist must not insist on the immediate integration of all members of PLA to Nepal Army as per the peace accord before restructuring the state with designs of federal states´ security policy that can address broader national security system.

People warn that at this point in the history of nation if three main political parties – Maoist, NC and UML fail to make a political consensus clean of all their own dirty politics for power then it is clear that none of them are seriously committed for the change. People demand that the recommendations of six member task force of three main political parties for a simple majority vote of Constituent Assembly amendment must be implemented to form the government as well as to elect President, Vice President and the Prime Minister.