Democracy For Nepal: Is An All Party Government Possible, Desirable?

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Worst Case Scenarios

Bad Case Scenarios

Two Knotty Issues

Solution: Parliamentary Supremacy

Attempt an all party government.
Form an all party steering committee.
Hold full fledged debates/discussions in the parliament on security sector reform and land reform.
Pass a law to force all political parties to make their book keeping public.
Let the parliament shape the idea of a new army for the country. A bill passed in the parliament would decide as to the size and shape of the future army. It might end up 30,000 strong, about 20,000 from the Nepal Army, about 4,000 from the Maoist Army, and 6,000 from elsewhere. There must be criteria - physical and otherwise - that all soldiers must meet, to be professionally determined.
Form an all party Land Reform Commission. All property captured by the Maoists during the 10 years will go under the guardianship of that commission. It would be for a duly elected parliament next year to decide as to what to do with that property. If the Maoists want land reform, they get to shape that land reform bill to be passed by the next parliament.

Who Could Lead An All Party Government?

Who Would Lead The All Party Steering Committee?

Appeasement: Not An Option

They tried that with Hitler. Let him have a small country, he will leave the rest of Europe alone. Appeasement does not work. That appeasement lead to World War II.
Appeasing Prachanda's and the Maoists' dictatorial tendencies is not an option.
There can be no compromise on multi-party democracy.
Security sector reform is an option: heck, it is desirable. Land reform is an option: heck, it is long overdue. Federalism is a must. The Maoists can have all that.
What they can never hope to have is a one party communist republic. There we have to draw the line. The YCL does not get to engage in use of force. (Madman Prachanda, Hindenburg Girija, Youth Communist League: Prachanda's Brown Shirts)

Reality Check

But we can not assume the Maoists want an all party government.
If all the other parties come together and prove a majority in the parliament, they are the legitimate government. That is how it works. The Maoists don't then have the option to threaten the workers of the other parties in the districts. If they do, the state has to counter them.
The non-Maoist parties can not engage in appeasement.
All you need is a majority in the parliament to have a government.
The Maoists have to show they can sit in the opposition also. They have work to do to show they are up for multi-party democracy and rule of law.