Democracy For Nepal: Member of Parliament

Showing posts with label Member of Parliament. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

संसदको स्वाधीनता

नेपालको अहिलेको तथाकथित "लोकतंत्र" कस्तो छ भन्दा खेरी संसद भन्दा माथि राजनीतिक पार्टी र सबै भन्दा माथि दुई-चार जना पार्टी अध्यक्ष हरु। कहीं नभएको जात्रा हाँडी गाउँमा।

जब कि संसद आफैमा स्वाधीन हो --- लोकतन्त्रमा। सांसद हुन्छन्। संसदीय दल हुन्छ। पार्टी को व्हिप सम्म हुन्छ। तर त्यो व्हिप पार्टी ले पठाएको मान्छे होइन कि संसदीय दल ले आतंरिक निर्वाचन बाट चुनेको मान्छे हुन्छ। पार्टी अध्यक्ष सांसद हो भने, संसदीय दलको नेता हो भने संसद लाई त्यो व्यक्ति सँग मतलब हुन्छ नत्र भने हुँदैन।

सभामुख अथवा राष्ट्रपति सभामुख/राष्ट्रपति हुनु अगाडि कुनै पार्टीको मान्छे हुन सक्छ। तर सभामुख/राष्ट्रपति भए पछि त्यो व्यक्तिले कुनै पार्टी अथवा पार्टी अध्यक्ष को आदेश लिँदैन। तर नेपालमा केपी ओली ले आफ्नो पियन भा जस्तो गरेर सभामुख लाई जागीर बाट फाल्दिन्छु भनेर हप्कायेको इतिहास छ। त्यस लाई अलोकतांत्रिक चरित्र भन्ने कि बाहुन को जनजाति प्रतिको attitude भन्ने? दुबै।

संसद ले कानुन र सरकार बनाउने मात्र होइन कि आफ्ना विभिन्न कमिटी र सब कमिटी का माध्यमले सम्पुर्ण सरकारी संयत्र माथि बराबर निगरानी गरिरहेको हुन्छ। त्यसमा सत्ताधारी पार्टी का सांसद मात्र संलग्न हुन्छन् भन्ने होइन।

संसदको स्वाधीनता स्थापित गर्दै जानुपर्छ। लोकतंत्र १९ दिनमा जम्मा हुने भीड़ होइन, वर्षौं, दशकों लगाएर परिष्कृत गर्दै जाने संस्कृति र संस्कार हो।

संसदको त्यति ठुलो महत्त्व र स्थान हुनाले नै निष्पक्ष निर्वाचन चाहिएको हो।

Friday, October 03, 2014

5 States, 75 Districts, 75 Parliamentary Constituencies

5 States, their names to be decided through majority vote by their respective parliaments.
The 75 districts remain intact.
There are only two direct elections in the country, one for the national parliament, another at the local level for wada chiefs and mayors and deputy mayors.
The MPs elect the Prime Minister.
The wada chiefs, mayors, deputy mayors elect the district government.
Every elected leader in the country at all levels elect the country's president who is the constitutional head, and the Commander In Chief of the Nepal Army.
The two direct elections are held during alternate two years, the dates decided autonomously by the Election Commission.
The MPs are elected in each district at the district level. Districts that qualify for more than one MP are made multi member constituencies. Details on how multi member constituencies operate are in these blog posts from 2007.

Meeting Ground Between Congress And Maoists: 75 Multi Member Constituencies
Compromise Formula: 75 Multi Member Constituencies

Thursday, October 02, 2014

5 States, 75 Districts

5 states, their names to be decided through majority vote by their state legislatures once they are formed before monsoon 2015.
Two direct elections, one for MPs, another for wada chiefs, mayors and deputy mayors.
MPs elect Prime Minister.
Wada chiefs, mayors and deputy mayors elect members of the district government.
All elected leaders at all levels elect the President who is constitutional chief and Commander In Chief of the Nepal Army.

Saturday, June 07, 2014

205 + 100 MPs At Most

I am pretty happy with the map I drew a few days back.

6 Geographic States With Geographic Names

The next question obviously is, how do you constitute the national parliament.

The two Terai states would end up with something like 55% of the population and so should get 55% of the MPs.

How many MPs total? If a large country like India has about 500, a small country like Nepal should be able to do with 200. So, say, 205 is the Lower House, and 100 in the Upper House.

Once you figure out which district gets how many MPs, then there should be reservations. 10% of the constituencies should be reserved for Dalits. As in, only Dalit candidates may contest. These should be the 22 constituencies with the largest shares of Dalit populations. Eight of these 22 should be reserved for Dalit women.

Every third constituency should be reserved for women. 20% of these for Dalit women, 30% for Madhesi women, 30% for Janajati women.

First past the post for the Lower House.

For the 100 seats in the Upper House, it is all proportional. So a party that gets 30% of the votes gets 30% of the seats, and so on. The list has to be submitted beforehand. As in, you can not change the list ex post facto. And the list should be inclusive of the DaMaJaMa. As in, one third women, 10% Dalits, and so on. One third women meaning every third name on the list is a woman.

205 + 100 = 305.

This would be the national parliament. It could be made that the entire parliament elects the Prime Minister, and not just the Lower House.

Every elected leader in the country at local, state and national level will form a pool. That pool will elect a president who would be the constitutional head and the Commander In Chief of the Nepal Army.

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Samanupatik Nautanki

English: Nitish Kumar (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(written for Vishwa Sandesh)

I have been astounded by the process through which the political parties in Nepal have allotted the seats that fell in their laps through the proportional representation formula.

My impression is the way it is supposed to work is a political party submits a list of candidates, and if it wins 10 seats for proportional representation, the first 10 names on the list get selected automatically. There is no room to play around with the list after the votes have been counted.

In Nepal’s case, since there is a major emphasis on inclusion, there should have been provisions like every third name on the list should be that of a female, every tenth name should be that of a dalit, every sixth name should be Madhesi, every fifth name should be that of a Janajati. For the regional parties like the Madhesi parties are, there would be emphasis also on the Muslims.

Instead the party presidents ended up having near total sway leading to major intra-party dissatisfactions.

There has been much talk of an inclusive democracy over the past few years. I believe 49% of all new entrants into the civil service will be coming through some sort of an inclusive formula. That is a decent arrangement whose pace might be quickened through a dramatic downsizing of the bureaucracy.

When you eliminate certain federal ministries and reduce the size of others, that creates room for the bureaucratic apparatus that needs to be set up at the state level. If the drama that has played out over the past few weeks ends up doing a repeat when the state level ministries are set up, it will not be fruitful. Meritocracy has to be the buzzword. Let the best candidates fill up the slots. That is what would be in the best interests of the people.

Federalism should not mean the regional political lords stuff up the to be built regional bureaucracies with their political cronies. That would be a disaster in the making.

A bright future for Nepal entails that the political parties play a smaller role in national life, and the party presidents have a smaller power base inside their political parties. The onus has to be on empowering the individual, the emphasis has to be on the private sector and the associated wealth creation and job creation.

The way the political party bosses were allowed to allocate their party’s PR seats is a bad sign. This is a sign the party bosses might again be more interested in forming and pulling down governments than in constitution writing.

I wonder how the proportional representation thing will play out in the constitution that will get written. First of all one hopes Nepal sure does not end up with 600 MPs. That is more than what India and America have. For a small country that Nepal is 200 MPs would be more than enough. Add to that another 100 for the upper house and maybe that is what the politicos have in mind. Perhaps those 100 would be by the PR formula. But the lists will have to be finalized before the votes are cast, otherwise you end up with a sham PR system.

A political party builds and submits its list, to the Election Commission and to the public. The list has to meet the inclusion requirements for the DaMaJaMa. If a party might win 20 PR seats, the first 20 names on the list get selected automatically.

Party bosses allocating PR seats after the fact is not too different from when the king used to appoint the anchaladhish, the zonal commissioners.

Proportional representation is a good thought. It is a great way to make every vote count. And the inclusion formula is a great one. Nepal has seen too much social disparity over the centuries.

That same way of thinking has to percolate all the way to the local levels. Nitish in Bihar has done a good job of including women at the panchayat level. He has engaged in some good social engineering. I think Nepal should learn.

Despite the uninspiring drama of the past few weeks, I hope the elected leaders in Nepal deliver a new constitution before 2014 is out.

The political process is by definition a messy process. No party boss in Nepal is a Nitish Kumar, and that is the sad reality. But peace and constitution is not too much to ask for at this point.

A system is only as good as the people who run it. But there is also something called a political culture shift. And Nitish south of the border is proof one person can make a huge difference. For the longest time Bihar stayed the epitome of hopelessness. But it is now on its feet and running.

Once Nepal has a constitution and regular federal, state and local elections perhaps the process will throw up some worthy leaders who will work to give the country double digit growth rates. One hopes.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

3 Point Package Deal

On January 5 a new all party government in the leadership of Sushil Koirala is formed. It includes the NC, the UML, the UCPN(M), the CPN(M), the UDMF, the FDF. The UML gets Home, the UDMF gets Defense, the UCPN(M) gets Finance, the CPN(M) gets Sanchar, the FDF gets the Foreign Ministry. The rest of the ministries are fairly distributed among the six constituent groups. There is a Deputy Prime Minister from the UCPN(M).
This all party government on January 6 passes on to the president all election related ordinances that the president promptly approves. These details are agreed to before the all party government is formed. There are 240 directly elected MPs, and perhaps 101 elected through the proportional mechanism for a total of 341.
Elections must be held by the end of May 2013. If elections are not held by then, Sushil Koirala must resign. Such is the agreement.

In A Revived Constituent Assembly

English: The chart shows the composition of the Constituent Assembly Members (2008) vis a vis the parties they belong. Also percentage of the parties in CA is given. Gender/Women composition can also be found. Please contact Bal Krishna Jha (balkrishnajha@gmail.com) in case doubt/query. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am crunching some numbers based on this. And I remember Baidya claiming they are now the third largest party, so I am guessing they have more MPs than does the UML. I don't have the figures for where the Madhesi parties stand after their many splits.

UCPN(M) -- 119
NC ------- 115
CPN(M) --- 110
UML ------ 108*
MJF(D) ---- 13
NMSP ------ 13
MJF(R) ---- 12
MJFN ------ 14
TMLP ------ 11
TMLP(N) --- 10
RPP ------- 8
CPN(ML) --- 9
SP -------- 5
SSP ------- 4
Others ---- 46 (17 parties)

* I have no knowledge of how many of these are now with Ashok Rai.

Looks like both the Maoists-Madhesis and the NC-UML need the help of the Baidya group to be able to form a majority government if the assembly is revived. Or if the NC-UML bring a no confidence motion the Baidya group would have to abstain for the Baburam government to survive.

The key thing, though, is the federalists already have the signatures of two thirds of the members of the assembly. Federalism can be secured through the assembly.

FDRA rules out spring polls without package deal

the decision that if the major parties fail to reach consensus in a package deal by January 9 then the fresh polls won’t be held in April/May. ..... if the parties are incapable of hammering out a consensus between the parties then the FDRA will put forth a demand for the resurrection of the Constituent Assembly (CA) to promulgate the much hyped constitution. ..... decision to transform the PM Bhattarai led care taker government into consensus one as proposed earlier, failing which the ruling alliance will forward the name of another candidate from the ruling coalition. ..... If the parties do not agree to these options then there is no alternative but to go for neutral government

Gachhadhar rules out CA revival‚ clamours for fresh polls

the parties should forge consensus at the earliest and go for fresh polls rather than opting for the CA revival as it is complicated and impossible in the present scenario..... In today’s FDRA meeting most of the leaders had asserted for the reinstatement of the CA.