Thursday, June 23, 2005

Power Through Political Dialogue



Madhav Nepal's UML is part of the seven party alliance. That alliance wants the 1999 parliament revived. Now Nepal is in news saying he will not accept it if the parliament were revived by the king using Article 127. This is meaningful.

"Political dialogue or round-table conference are the only alternatives that could reinstate the Parliament .... We will not accept the restoration of Parliament using Article 127 since such a parliament will face the situation like the one faced by Sher Bahadur Deuba.... We were not clear about constituent assembly earlier because we had hopes on the King .. But now, since the monarchy has sidelined the political parties we have opened our doors for constituent assembly.... The Maoists must stop attack on parties and accept multi-party democratic system if they are to be trusted."

This has to be thought through.

This brings Madhav Nepal closer to my position. I have been for an interim government. Forget the 1999 parliament.

So if the 1999 parliament is to be revived, but it can not be done so using Article 127, then you are stepping outside of the constitution of 1990. There is no provision in the 1990 constitution for a roundtable conference. The very idea is to suggest the 1990 constitution is dead. Like the Panchayat constitution died in 1990.

And if the 1990 constitution is dead, the idea of reviving a parliament elected through the 1990 document makes no sense whatsoever. So instead you go straight for an interim government.

That reality has to be realized. The Nepali Congress is the second biggest roadblock towards that realization, the biggest being the king.

The king and the monarchists want to stick to the 1990 constitution, because its Article 127 reads like a constitution in its own right to the king. Article 127 gives him powers that Prithvi, and Tribhuvan, and Mahendra, and Birendra had, he thinks. And he likes that. He appointed Chand to become Prime Minister using Article 127, and then got his men to get Chand to "request" a major increase in the royal budget and salaries. If the 1990 constitution stays on, that increase can not be corrected because, according to the 1990 constitution, allowances to the king may be increased, but they may not be decreased.

And so the king is the biggest impediment to coming to terms with the reality that the 1990 constitution is dead.

Why is the Nepali Congress the second biggest impediment? I can only guess. Maybe they think the 1990 document is the best they can come up with, and to pronounce it dead is to suggest they are an incompetent group of people, an argyment that could be marshalled many other ways. They think of the 1990 document as their "child." To pronounce it dead would be like killing your own child. There is that kind of bogus sentiment. That sentiment makes the Nepali Congress a near right wing party, a party that stands in the way of the social progress of the DaMaJaMa.

DaMaJaMa liberation totally hinges on pronouncing the 1990 document dead.

There are also other ulterior motives. If the 1999 parliament is revived, the Nepali Congress can "emerge" as the largest party in the country. That is not the ground reality any more. If a new constitution were to be drafted, and new elections held, the Nepali Congress will probably emerge as the third largest party in the country, if even that. The Maoists or the UML will likely emerge the largest party. And the Congress people don't like the idea, so they would rather go in denial, that the 1990 constitution, the 1999 parliament, and the Nepali Congress' position as the largest party in the country, they are all over. Gone!

I think the seven party alliance should work on a strategy that assumes the king will not comply. So what do you do? All seven parties should work on drafting a new constitution right now. And they should do so publicly. In a transparent manner. Differences and disagreements are okay. That is what the Constituent Assembly will be for. But it is high time the seven parties and the Maoits each proposed a draft constitution, and started talking to each other.

It is that difficult dialogue that takes place within a Constituent Assembly. That process can start now.

Or the seven parties and the Maoists could give themselves a wonderful starting point.

My Proposed Constitution.

Take a look at it, and say in a public, transparent manner if there are portions you disagree with.

If the seven parties and the Maoists could agree on a constitution now, that totally speeds things up. That clarity will topple the regime like nothing else.

It boild down to political dialogue. The key players need to be initiating dialogue, and holding relentless dialogue.

Power flows through political dialogue.
  1. Hold relentless, constant dialogue among all seven political parties.
  2. Invite the Maoists into that fold.
  3. All eight work on a draft constitution.
  4. Seek an interim government. Declare its formation unilaterally if you have to.
  5. Invite the Maoists into that governemnt after peace talks, after they have disarmed.
  6. Go for elections to a Constituent Assembly to iron out differences on the constitution that might still remain.
My Audio Clips: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
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The Monarchists Digging Heels


I don't know what the king and his courtiers are thinking, but they are nowhere close to seeing the light. They don't see what is at stake. Some examples have to be brought in to explain the situation, as to what is at stake.
  1. Ferdinand Marcos ..... his regime was marred by widespread corruption and political mismanagement by his cronies, which culminated with the assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr.. Marcos can be considered the quintessential kleptocrat, having supposedly looted billions of dollars from the Filipino treasury ...... a notorious nepotist, appointing family members and close friends to high positions in his government ..... Marcos was driven into exile ..... He and his wife, Imelda Marcos, went into exile in Hawaii and were later indicted for embezzlement in the United States. Marcos died in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1989 of kidney failure.
  2. Nicolae Ceauşescu ..... In 1989 Ceauşescu was showing signs of complete denial of reality. While the country was going through extremely difficult times with long bread lines in front of empty food stores, he was often shown on state TV entering stores jampacked with food supplies and praising the "high living standard" achieved under his rule. In the fall of 1989, daily TV broadcasts were showing endless scrolling lists of CAPs (kolkhozes) with alleged record harvests, in blatant contradiction with the shortages experienced by the average Romanian at the time....... Ceauşescu's regime collapsed after a series of violent events in Timişoara and Bucharest in December 1989...... Demonstrations in the city of Timişoara were triggered by the government-sponsored attempt to evict László Tőkés, an ethnic Hungarian church minister, accused by the government of inciting ethnic hate. Members of his ethnic Hungarian congregation surrounded his apartment in a show of support. Romanian students spontaneously joined the demonstration, which soon lost nearly all connection to its initial cause and became a more general anti-government demonstration. Regular military forces, police and Securitate fired on demonstrators on December 17, 1989..... Ceauşescu's senile reaction to the events had already become part of the country's collective memory. By the morning of December 22, the rebellion had already spread to all major cities.... the generals who were part of the conspiracy (led by general Victor Stănculescu) did their best to create such terrorist stories in order to induce fear and to draw the army on the conspirators' side. Generally, there is a consensus that there were some people instigating terror, and that others effectively caused incidents out of confusion. ...... The presidential couple kept moving through the countryside more or less aimlessly. Near Târgovişte they abandoned the helicopter, which was ordered to land by the army, which by that time had already declared Romania to be restricted air space. The flight included grotesque episodes: a car chase to evade citizens attempting an arrest, leaving behind of their aides, a short stay in a school. The Ceauşescus were finally held in a police car for several hours, while the policemen listened to the radio, presumably in an attempt to get a clue as to which political faction was about to win. Police eventually turned over the presidential couple to the army....... The "trial" and execution were videotaped. The footage was promptly released in France and other western countries. Several days later, the footage of their trial (but not of their execution) was released on television for the Romanian public.
  3. Saddam Hussein ..... He was captured at approximately 8:30 PM Iraqi time on December 13, in an underground "spider hole" at a farmhouse in ad-Dawr near his home town Tikrit, in what was called Operation Red Dawn. ..... Some reported that Saddam Hussein had actually been captured by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and then drugged before being placed in the spider hole to be found by American troops...... Members of the Governing Council who spoke with Saddam after his capture reported that he was unrepentant, claiming to have been a "firm but just ruler." Later it emerged that the tip-off which led to his capture came from a detainee under interrogation.
On the other hand, you have the example of Norodom Sihanouk. ..... reigned as King of Cambodia until he announced his abdication on October 7, 2004, and is now "King-Father of Cambodia", a position in which he retains many of his former prerogatives as king. .... two terms as king, two as sovereign prince, one as president, two as prime minister, and one as Cambodia's non-titled head of state, as well as numerous positions as leader of various governments in exile..... The next year, on April 4, 1976, the Khmer Rouge forced Sihanouk out of office again and into political retirement. He then sought refuge in the People's Republic of China and in North Korea....... The Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in December 1978 ousted the Khmer Rouge. Although wary of the Khmer Rouge, Prince Sihanouk eventually joined forces with them in order to provide a united front against the Vietnamese...... Peace negotiations between the CGDK and the PRK commenced shortly thereafter and continued until 1991 when all sides agreed to a comprehensive settlement which they signed in Paris...... Although the King had very limited political power, in mid-February 2004, after watching scenes of jubilant gay and lesbian couples receiving marriage licenses in San Francisco, California, he announced that Cambodia, too, should recognize same-sex marriage. In the same statement, he also expressed support for transvestites. While carrying no legal force, this proclamation (in which he states that God loves a "wide range of tastes") held considerable moral weight in a nation where the King continued to enjoy substantial popularity for a lifetime of efforts on behalf of his country's independence...... He became one of the first heads of state in the region to have a personal website, which has proven a cult hit, drawing more than a thousand visitors a day, a substantial portion of his nation's Internet users. Royal statements usually appear posted there on a daily basis for his subjects' perusal....... announced his abdication of the throne on October 7, 2004. The Cambodian constitution made no provision for such a move

Much is at stake, and time is running out. The king should engage the seven parties in dialogue immediately. And dialogue necessarily means give and take. It is not about trying to force the other party to your point of view.

In The News
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