Round The World

New Delhi, 3 June 2008

‘Republic of Nepal’

CELEBRATIONS IN TRANSIT STATE

By Dr. Monika Chansoria

(School of International Studies, JNU)

Nepal braced itself to be referred to as a Republic from 29 May onwards as opposed to being the ‘Kingdom of Nepal’ when it became the world’s newest Republic with a historic Assembly session abolishing its monarchy. It gave the ‘unpopular’ King Gyanendra a two-week notice to evict the pink pagoda-roofed Royal Narayanhiti Palace or ‘get ready to be forced out.’

The eviction order thereby ended 240 years of royal rule in Nepal. Subsequently, the Royal Standard flying atop the Narayanhiti Palace was brought down by officials. For decades together, the Nepalese population considered its monarch as an incarnation of the Hindu God of protection, Vishnu.

The decline of the Nepalese monarchy has been rather dramatic and the heavily one-sided vote to abolish the monarchy culminates the process of the closing stages of the centuries-old Hindu monarchy Kingdom.

The transition towards ‘a secular, federal, democratic, Republic nation’ was formalized with a resolution moved by the Home Minister KP Sitaula and passed immediately by 560 votes in favour and 4 against by a special session of the newly elected Constituent Assembly. By means of this motion, King Gyanendra and other members of the royal family have been reduced to common citizen’s status, thus loosing all cultural, administrative and political powers.

However, hours before the announcement, few suspected royalists threw three crude bombs in Kathmandu, leading to chaos and wounding one person. Meanwhile, thousands of Nepalese people gathered on the streets of the Capital in support of their ‘Republic Day’.

Thousands of Maoists, now referred to as former insurgents and new members of the Assembly’s biggest political party ever since joining the political mainstream, also rallied in Kathmandu carrying hammer and sickle flags and pumping their fists in the air as they shouted slogans against the monarchy.

Referring to Nepal becoming a Republic, Girija Prasad Koirala addressed the Assembly and stated, “Today is the day when my dreams have been realized and similarly the dreams of the nation have perhaps also been realized.”

“This is the people’s victory. With today’s declaration of a Republic we have achieved what we fought for,” were the sentiments of former Maoist guerrilla, Kamal Dahal.

Apparently the Maoists, who emerged as the largest party in last month’s elections, were committed to removing the monarchy right at the onset. They entered the political arena after signing a peace deal in 2006 that led to the end of a decade-long period of violent insurgency. Thereafter, King Gyanendra was stripped of all his powers and forced to end his reign of royal dictatorship and restore democracy after widespread protests all over the country two years ago.

The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) finally became the mainstream Nepalese political party with an unprecedented mandate with their leader Prachanda, declaring that he himself would lead the new Government of the ‘Republic of Nepal.’

Moreover, the people of Nepal too spoke candidly with their vote and crucially the election witnessed nearly 65 per cent of the nation’s voting population exercising their franchise and delivering a mandate in favour of the Maoist party.

In what could be considered a key development, even though the United States has not yet struck out the Maoists from its terrorist blacklist, Washington has since inverted its preceding policy of not negotiating with the group’s leaders.

The US Government still classifies the Maoist group as a terrorist organization, with US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Evan Feigenbaum asserting, “The degree to which the United States would work with the Maoists depends on how well they stayed away from violence.” Adding, that Washington was working with the Maoists to try to encourage a stable, democratic and peaceful country.

The victory of the Maoists that practically sealed the fate of the discredited monarchy in Kathmandu saw them winning 220 seats of the total 601, with expectations to head the new Government.

Conversely, political squabbles already seem to be taking precedence with Maoist Chairman Prachanda making a terse statement on 30 May stating, “Our Party deserves both the posts of President and Prime Minister. Losers cannot get these posts,” apparently referring to the Nepali Congress (NC) Party and the Communist Party of Nepal (UML) who lost in the Constituent Assembly elections.

Expectedly, leaders of both these parties have expressed concern over Prachanda’s remarks. The NC Vice-President and Minister for Peace and Reconstruction Ram Chandra Paudel termed this ‘undemocratic’. He further stressed, “Demanding both the President and Prime Minister posts is nothing but totalitarian tendency.”

The UML leader Bharat Mohan Adhikari too said their Party could not agree with this statement. “The President and Prime Minister should be from different parties, he asserted.”

Not only that. The power-sharing issue has upset the other parties as well including the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum and the Maoists themselves. Furthermore, all the four parties are in favour of electing the President through a simple majority of the Constituent Assembly members while the Maoists favour a majority of two-thirds.

Subsequently, in what could be judged as a crucial turn of events, Chairman Prachanda has threatened as recently as 2 June, to launch a massive agitation in the next few days if the mainstream parties in Nepal prevented the former rebels from leading a Government. “We will have no option but to launch a struggle if the crisis were not resolved soon,” Prachanda said in severe rhetoric at a rally of supporters in western Nepal.

It appears absolutely clear that the declaration of the Republic of Nepal is just the first step in the long journey of the country’s political future. Evidently, the ongoing political bickering is testament to the fact that fine-tuning among the Seven-Party Alliance and the Maoists may not be all velvety.

Significantly, although the Maoists are now in pre-eminence in the Government, they still remain laden with the baggage of essentially being a guerrilla group with several queries persisting about the new power structure in the new-fangled Nepalese Republic.

Therefore, the primary and foremost challenge confronting Kathmandu today is to translate the mandate of the Nepalese people into fine and effective governance and bring about peace, political stability and economic development to the Himalayan country.

Undoubtedly, Nepal’s tumultuous transition from a kingdom to a democracy does indeed come about as a welcome transformation for the Nepalese people but the celebrations could well be in transit given the potential reality that in the long run, ongoing political wrangling amidst the Seven-Party Alliance and the Maoists might just take precedence over governance. --- INFA

 (Copyright India News & Feature Alliance)