Narayan Manandhar
This is my second instalment on the issue. One can visit first instalment in the Republica, 11 September 2004. It is interesting to revisit one’s own writing and see how things have turned out? The first instalment can be taken as a background material.
The question Quo Vadis? remains as much relevant today as before. There are no roads to nowhere. If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.
Afterthoughts on elections
RSP must be in a state of euphoria, similar to the Maoists in the aftermath of first CA elections 2008. That is, they did not believe in themselves with the election results, forget about others. But when the sitting PM Mrs Sushila Karki posits that, a week before elections, she is very much eager to handover power to young generation; and after elections, the acting Chief Commissioner boasts with pride organizing elections sans bloodshed and violence, unprecedented in Nepal’s electoral history, then you have to think twice on election results. Least one need not forget to add flippant comment by the sitting PM that UML president Mr Oli agreed going to the polls only after being assured of his victory. You can add on to the list the state putting a ban on pre-poll and exit-poll surveys or strategically delaying the publication of Karki Investigation Commission report. Hopefully, in future, the data scientists and analysts will help us to gleam through electoral data in terms of total number of voters, voters turnout, invalid votes, margin between FPTP votes and PR votes dis-aggregated by constituencies, political parties and individual candidates. For me research is all about detecting a pattern.
From fluidity to freezing
With the elections, some political pundits opine that the Constitution is now on the track. They are very much thankful to Karki Government. Whether it is on the right or wrong track is a different issue to be investigated. Still, there are others feeling euphoric with possible sweeping of communists from the country. Definitely, cantankerous communists have been a problem, it is far more preferable to have a noisy marriage party than an eerie silence of a funeral service. In her last address, even departing PM Mrs Karki informed that the elections have demystified popular belief that “it is impossible or near impossible to secure single party majority”. The issue here is not of having the constitution “on the right or on the wrong track”; now we have politicians determined to quash the constitution itself. I love listening that dialouge from a Bollywood movie: hum jail se bhagkar nahi aaya, hum jail ko todkar aaya, translated as: “I have not come here escaping from the prison, I have come here quashing the prison”.
For me, political fluidity has come to a state of freezing. When asked by an interviewer to give a liner suggestion to the new government, senior lawyer Mr Pruna Man Shakya did not hesitate to say: “I will be very much thankful if he (PM) is able to run the country for coming five years.” Even with near two-third majority, you are not sure of the political instability. When you have a 15-member Cabinet comprising seven from your side and seven from the other, literally, you are walking on a razor blade. Is it an illusion to have potpourri of MPs with young ages, new faces, fresh faces?
Good Governance first and development later
The recent spree of taking opposition leaders and bureaucrats into the custody overnight, may not be a part of political vendetta, rather a stepping stone to good governance agenda. But the very notion that the government will prioritize good governance first and then look into development agenda is like having dal first (as a soup) and eating bhat (rice) later instead of Nepali way of eating dal-bhat together. There is greater possibility of having neither when you seek to trade-off between the two.
Body language
You convey more messages through body language than through what you say and write. One can only deduce the style of leadership to come from what happened earlier at the KMC. There is a whole team there to replicate KMC style of management. I do not want to delve into KMC style of management but being a student of management let me recall reading elsewhere how Ford Motor company used to run before 1930s: Ford agreed to grant workers’ union only after his wife threatened to divorce. Yes, management was all about using brutal force. Are we back to panchayat regime?
