In the name of flexibility without compromising on basic principle, I am throwing in a few straws.
What if the UML proposal were to be taken into consideration? The entire country would be one constituency. And there would be say 300 seats for the constituent assembly. All political parties would draw up a list of 300 candidates. So if a party gets 33% of the votes, the first 100 on its list would get in. Kind of like in Israel.
The good side is this looks proportional, and is. On the other hand, the political party leaders end up with too much power. The principle of direct elections is ditched. There will be a fundamental disconnect between the voters and those who will represent them.
The mixed system looks better. You get the best of both worlds. But for that having the 205 constituencies based on equal population is fundamental to the Madhesi movement. There can be no compromise on that. Right now only 80 of the 205 seats are in the Terai.
Now there is talk of increasing that number. If you add 25 other seats in the Terai, the Terai will have 105 out of 225. That is still not 50-50. If you were to add an additional 45 seats in the Terai, then it will have 125 out of 250 seats. That is closer to what is needed. That way you don't have to mess up with any of the Hill and Mountain constituencies.
On the other hand, you will have to reduce the number of seats in the other category, the proportional representation part. Have only 100 seats through indirect elections. Any political party that gathers at least 1% of the votes will qualify for it. And their vote percentage will be rounded off to the nearest number. So 1.2% will mean 1%. 2.7% will mean 3% and 3 seats. But parties that might get less than 1% may not gang up post election: their votes will go discounted.
And so you end up with a constituent assembly that is 345 strong. We don't want one that is too big. 345 is a good size.
If we can agree on this, federalism can be postponed for now.
The constituent assembly will be a body that will give Nepal a new constitution. But it will also function as a parliament. It will produce a majority government. It will pass bills and make laws. It will be a full fledged legislative body like any other. The executive it will produce will be a full fledged executive.
The constituent assembly will declare a republic on day one.
The constituent assembly could pass a bill on federalism within a month of taking shape. And it could go ahead and implement that. We could have elections to the federal states within six months of elections to the constituent assembly.
The constituent assembly could pass a new Citizenship Bill if that issue is not fully resolved before the constituent assembly.
The constituent assembly would have a three year term.
Stop Badmouthing The Madhesi Movement
If this is not a Madhesi Movement but rather a counter revolution by the royalists and the Hindu supremacists, why is the government inviting the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum for dialogue?
In The News
In the central and eastern tarai, rage, determination, and grief Nepali Times The highways and tatty streets of the eastern and central tarai are periodically overrun with demonstrators, almost entirely men and boys. By the time of our visit last weekend the demonstrations in Lahan itself had become ritualised and much of the violence had been sucked out of them. ..... “The pahadis say a madhesi can’t be prime minister,” bellows Krishna Bahadur Yadav of the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF). “Well, I challenge them. They’ve run the country for 238 years. We’ll run it for 1,000 years.” ...... madhesis are treated as “stepsons” and that federal government is needed now. .... South of the central chok there are shards of glass scattered all around. Away to the right are burnt-out hulks of perhaps a dozen buses. Nearer, on the left, are massed armed police, ready in their riot gear and looking nervous. Crows and bicycle rickshaws provide the main sign of life in a town which is replaying its own version of last year’s April Uprising. ...... Nothing is moving on the highway, and there are not even vehicles parked by its sides. It is the realm of ox-carts, cycles, boys playing cricket, walkers. In our vehicle plastered with BBC stickers, we are an oddity. On our initial journey from Biratnagar there are many fallen trees across the road, and demonstrations with burning tyres. Villagers show us the detours. On our way back two days later there are considerably more barriers but fewer demonstrations. That, though, was before Tuesday’s flare-up in Biratnagar. ...... later that day at Mirchaiya, west of Lahan, the mood is darker. .... one person smashes our back windscreen to smithereens. The others apologise, but the mood is volatile. ...... Madhesis, with their very real political grievances ...... people of pahadi origin are now fleeing their tarai homes, being threatened in what seem like acts of revenge, having their doors and windows smashed, and journalists are having to quit their workplaces after death threats. ...... The responsible madhesi leaders clearly abhor such violence. But the madhes is burning, and people are scared.
Restive MJF “Nepal can be a Hindu state only if we are committed to Hindutva.” Those were the words spoken from the podium of a RSS Hindu extremist conference in Gorakhpur on 19 December by none other than Upendra Yadav of the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF). In November 2006, Yadav took part in a meeting in Raxaul of the BJP’s fraternal organisation, Sima Jagaran Manch. The MJF was set up soon after the Gorakhpur meeting and included such personalities as Laxmanlal Karna of the royalist NSP as well as republican activists. There is now uneasiness about Yadav within the MJF. “We can’t deny that our Forum is slipping into regression,” says ex-general secretary and current member of MJF, Jaya Prakash Gupta. Royalists have lately become prominent in the MJF and are given to spouting radical rhetoric. Sources say the Indian Embassy is worried about India being dragged into the controversy, and diplomats admit privately that the BJP could be involved. The JTMM’s Goit faction is said to be supported by BJP’s Raj Kishore Singh, while Jwala Singh is being egged on by Pappu Yadav. The fact that Upendra Yadav’s appeal not to use violence is not being heeded seems to show the MJF is now out of the control of the leadership. Says madhesi activist Vijay Kanta Karma: “If the parties and civil society don’t take leadership, this movement will be hijacked by reactionaries and could disrupt communal harmony.”
Upendra Yadav Who is this man forcing the country to backtrack on the gains of People Power 2006? Sanghu has learnt that he is a flipflopper who has never stayed with any one cause and is probably a front for someone else. He was involved in politics since his student days in Sunsari, but showed instability and opportunistic traits. ..... He joined the Maoists and was in its district leadership. His erstwhile Maoist colleagues recall that he used to say madhesis shouldn’t sacrifice their lives for the ‘People’s War’, but should sacrifice pahadi lives. The Maoist headquarters now suspect that Yadav provided the information to Indian police which lead to the arrests of Matrika Yadav and Suresh Ale Magar in 2004. Yadav was also arrested but mysteriously freed. He didn’t survive for long in the Maoist movement. ....... In December 2006, he attended a conference of Indian Hindu extremists in Gorakhpur during which he publicly spoke about turning Nepal back into a Hindu nation. But barely a month later, he is now leading a movement for a secular, federal republic. Along with Yadav, the Forum consists of discredited individuals like Sitananda Rai, who was expelled from the UML, corrupt NC leader Jaya Prakash Gupta, royalist Ramchandra Rai, nominated member of the interim parliament Amaresh Kumar Singh, and pro-Indian leader Manoj Singh, the son ofRamraja Prasad Singh.
Graft and riots While Kamal Thapa has been arrested for inciting violence in the tarai, we understood that royalist Badri Prasad Mandal, royal chief secretary Lokman Singh Karki, and advisor to the king Satchit Shamshere Rana were also actively involved in stirring the violence in the tarai. ....... Karki is said to have used his sources at the Finance Ministry to raise the money needed to organise the riots. Karki apparently receives commissions on evaded custom’s duties for successful smuggling deals. He also gathers funds using the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works (via commission on contracts) and the Supreme Court (via revenue-related cases). ...... Our source tells us that those accused by the Rayamajhi Commission regularly meet in Kathmandu and have been planning their moves for a long time. They began by implementing them in Nepalganj and have since successfully and systematically moved in to other regions in the tarai.
Hour of reckoning Though he looked frail, his voice was steely and he seemed in no mood to listen. The signs of Koirala’s fabled inflexibility are portentous. ...... Elections to a constituent assembly became an agenda of compromise, but all signatories to the common minimum program continue to hold a grudge against a document they signed under difficult circumstances. ...... NC leaders are unhappy because leftists dominate the interim legislature.The UML is sore it couldn’t check the rise of the Maoists. Royalists are alarmed that the king has been sidelined. ...... all parties in the alliance want the interim constitution but none are willing to defend it. ..... Madhesi protestors were out on the streets in Siraha, the prime site of vote-bank politics in the eastern tarai. ...... strengthens the impression that no matter what the system, the state of Nepal is completely insensitive to the concerns of madhesis. ....... it gave madhesis an unambiguous message that their own prime minister showed a callous disregard for their feelings. ........ Koirala has been a consummate politician all his life. More than anyone else in government now, he knows the significance of gestures. It’s unlikely that he doesn’t know the consequences of his rigidity on madhesi political demands. ....... The stress of heading an embattled party, an embittered coalition, and a beleaguered government besieged by fierce transitional contestations must be overpowering. And he is grieving the loss of close relative and longtime party companion, Nona Koirala. But the task of being head of state as well as head of government is not for the obstinate or the feeble. ....... Ironically, Koirala is the most popular mainstream politician in the tarai—and the opposite in the hills, valleys, and mountains of Nepal.
GNU Looming catastrophes are always slightly better than erupting ones .... when riots engulfed the tarai—madhesis threatening to cleanse the lowlands of outsiders, declare independence, and form yet another impoverished, landlocked, resource-free country. The Great National Unraveling (GNU) is apparently underway. ........The gnu is an awkward beast of the African savannah, a composite of horse, buffalo, and antelope randomly joined in bits, not unlike the dubious nation state patched together by the Shah dynasty. ......
Cyber-tarai
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