Opinion Divisions in the House

As everyone from Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal to Maoist chief Prachanda admits,the Constituent Assembly will not be able to deliver the constitution by the May 28 deadline,and the House would need an extension of another year. In this context,the flexibility on the part of the Maoists could be tactical,a proof of good intention alongside the resolution moved by the government for an extension of the House.

The biggest threat to the peace process in the country,which is fundamentally linked to the drafting of a new constitution,comes from the non-implementation of several provisions in the Comprehensive Peace Accord signed in 2006. The Maoists are being squarely blamed for this by the other signatory,the Nepali Congress. The latter has now put forward a 10-point demand as a precondition for supporting the proposal to extend the House tenure,without which the constitution-drafting process cannot be completed.

The Nepali Congress wants the Maoists to dispose of their arms,disband their army,return property the insurgents captured during the years of conflict and transform the Young Communist League into a civilian outfit. Maoist vice-chairman Baburam Bhattarai,who is trusted by New Delhi and the Nepali Congress,responded promptly and positively. He said the Maoists would be willing to have their combatants integrated into a new force to be created under the directorate of the Nepal army: “Once that modality is accepted,issues like ranks,norms,training and command system can be settled later.” Maoist leaders,meanwhile,say their flexibility should not be seen as a sign of weakness.

No one undermines the Maoists or believes that peace and the constitution-making process can be completed by bypassing them. However,not much headway was made on these two counts even though the Maoists had led the first government for 10 months after April 2008 — they have also dominated the House and committees all along.

The Nepali Congress and the Maoists have fallen out. The politics of consensus that all parties promised to pursue has collapsed completely. What injects fear into other parties,including the Nepali Congress,is the parallel move by the Maoists to bring the Left groups together and bulldoze resistance from non-Left quarters while making the constitution.

The Left’s strength in the House is about 62 per cent. With support from others,it could get the two-thirds majority needed to draft the kind of constitution it wants. Therefore,the continuation of the House has become more of a Maoist agenda in particular,and of the Left in general.

It has triggered a sharp polarisation in Nepal politics. The only Madhesh-based party that had joined the ruling Left coalition,the Madheshi Jandhikar Forum (MJF),has been disowned by a majority of its parliamentarians. A faction of 13 MPs led by Jaya Prakash Gupta formed the MJF-Republican on Monday. All the other Madhesh-based parties have not only decided to oppose the extension of the House term but are also persuading the Nepali Congress to stand firm against the Maoists.

But what happens if there is no House? Political parties have yet to chart out a clear line on this. Former PM Surya Bahadur Thapa is the only one who has said the president should take over,an act Nepal’s interim constitution is silent on.

The Maoists use the “absence of alternative” as the reason for a further extension. In the process,they are ready to promise anything that others may demand. After all,Nepal’s recent politics has been about signing agreements without ever implementing them.

For a change,the people have now come out in a big way under different banners with a single message: that the House cannot get away with its non-accomplishments and partisan politics.

Yet,it could be the Nepali Congress — a party that still carries the legacy of pro-democracy movements in the past —that will chart out a future course for Nepal’s politics. Its options are limited though: to find an excuse to support the Maoists to extend the House or bury the House that has failed over and over again.