Saturday, August 16, 2008

Promises to keep in Nepal

Aug.16, 2008


Promises to keep in Nepal


The election on Friday of Maoist chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal – better known as Prachanda — as prime minister Nepal puts an end to weeks of political battles as a paralysis gripped the country's functioning.
It also ends months of deadlock following the
abolition of the monarchy as the successful culmination of a decade-long battle by the Maoists to overturn what they saw as a feudal structure.
It was not surprising that the Maoists won the largest number of seats in a new constitutional assembly in April elections, given that they held out an appeal to the people who had for long felt neglected and left to suffer.
The Maoists would have been much happier if they had won a majority of seats to form a government without having to strike deals with other parties.
The Maoists allied themselves with the centre-left Unified
Marxist-Leninist party and the Madheshi Janaadhikar Forum (MJF) to secure a simple majority for the move to make Prachanda the prime minister.
It clears the way for Nepal to start functioning. The country has been without a proper government since April 28, when the assembly voted to sack unpopular king Gyanendra and abolish the 240-year-old monarchy.
The interim prime minister, Girija Prasad Koirala, was seen by
many as the architect of the 2006 peace deal that ended the bloody
civil war, but the April elections signalled an end to his Nepali Congress Party's dominance.
The election of Prachanda — "the fierce one" — as prime minister is highly symbolic in more ways than one. Hailing from a high-caste but poor farming family, Prachanda was driven to politics by the extreme poverty he witnessed in rural Nepal. While he went on to score success in leading the Maoists in a decade-long insurgency in 2006, the school teacher-turned-revolutionary has had trouble shaking off his ruthless warlord image.
Indeed, he has abandoned his war rhetoric and won the April elections on the promise of creating a new Nepal. But his party ranks are still a source of concern. The Young Communist League — his party's youth wing — has not been disbanded, something that has to be done with urgency in order to underline that the Maoists have fully abandoned violence. They have yet to return the property seized during the conflict in line with their commitment in the peace deal.
Indeed, Prachanda begins his mission as his country faces shortages of fuel, food inflation, rising unemployment and growing crime. He also faces the task of balancing his pre-election promises with the realities on the ground. An outstanding example is his promise of land to tillers in a country where 80 per cent of the 26.4 million people live on farm income.
His affirmation that his party is not "dogmatic communists" and is committed to interaction with Nepal's immediate neighbours and the international community at large is reassuring. Hopefully, he will be able to live up to the aspirations of the people of Nepal.