Nepal: Royal take over is
complete: Update No. 22
by Dr. S. Chandrasekharan
On October 11, King Gyanendra appointed Lokendra Bahadur
Chand as Prime minister of a nine-member Council of Ministers. A surprise
selection was the appointment of Badri Prasad Madal, a Terain as the
Deputy Prime minister. Though he has been given unimportant portfolios and
the appointment itself being symbolic, the fact that a Terain has been
elevated to such a high post has left many Terains euphoric. The King by
this master stroke has achieved two objectives- 1. Create a split in the
six party alliance which had opposed King’s dismissal of Deuba
government and assuming all executive powers. Badri Mandal was the acting
president of the Nepal Sadhbhavana party, a constituent of the alliance,
2. Win the support of India as Mandal is of Indian origin.
The list of Ministers include Dharma Bahadur Thapa,
former Anchaladesh (Zonal Commissioner) as Home Minister, Badri Prasad
Shrestha noted economist as Finance minister, Narendra Bahadur Shah, a sly
but experienced foreign service officer and distantly related to the King,
noted neuro surgeon Dr. Upendra Devkota and Anuradha Koirala a popular
social worker and president of Maiti an NGO that has been fighting against
trafficking in girls from Nepal.
All the individuals including Chand do have a clean
image though they lack experience in governance. Most important, they are
all loyal and obedient subjects of the King.
With the composition of the council of ministers, it is
becoming increasingly clear that King Gyanendra will be ruling directly
with a pliant group of ministers. Thus he has a heavy responsibility and his task is unenviable given the
problems faced by Nepal now.
* Firstly, he will have to manage the recalcitrant
political parties and their leaders who for sometime to come will be
unemployed. The leaders of six party alliance waited in vain to have
an appointment with the King. They wanted to urge the King to rectify
the "unconstitutional" steps taken by the King, by resorting
to Article 128 of the Constitution and transfer the power back to the
people. They were not opposed to joining the cabinet. King Gyanendra’s
aversion to political parties is well known. When the parties wanted
to make a joint meeting, the King saw the unionist approach as a red
rag and decided to avoid them altogether. Will the political parties
make an impact in their opposition? Unlikely, as they are divided and
have by now lost their credibility and people’s support.
* Secondly, the King will have to pay attention to the
economy. With the tourist traffic (chief dollar earner) coming to a
standstill (some German tourists were attacked last month), the
economy is on a down slide with negative growth. Indian help will be
required to revive some of the industries in Terai. Indian tourist
traffic is another money spinner if sufficient encouragement is given.
The key to Nepal’s development is its water resources but this
should be a long term goal. The Nepalese will only have look at Bhutan
and decide what they want to do for themselves in exploiting the water
resources.
* Thirdly and perhaps most important and serious is
the challenge posed by the Maoist insurgents. Soon after the dismissal of
Deuba government, Prachanda, chairman of the Maoists condemned the
take over and said that "instead of reinstating parliament and
taking steps to initiate dialogue for peace, the move towards
deferment of polls and formation of all-party government smacks of
conspiracy to take the country back to 1951 to 1959 period. " He
spoke again of "conspiracy" against their proposal of round
table conference and dialogue as positive political way out to end
civil war. Significantly this time he did not mention of any royal
representative in the proposed round table conference. The
statement of Baburam Bhattarai who is the real organiser and the
ideologue for the people’s war was more threatening. He said
"our struggle has been crystallised by the royal announcement."
In a direct reference to King, the statement
threatened attacks, similar to the one that occurred in September in
Sindhu Phulchowk. It is no mean challenge. The Maoists buttressed
their threat in creating three major incidents in Kathmandu itself in the
last one week. The last incident was a bomb explosion near the statue
of late King Mahendra in the busy area of Kalimati in the heart of
Kathmandu.
The newly formed ministers have also been entrusted with
the following tasks apart from routine administration. These are
* creating a conducive atmosphere based on a
national consensus to end the existing anarchy
* holding free and fair local as well as general
elections at the earliest possible date to ensure institutional
consolidation of multi party democracy
* effectively introducing corruption control
programme at all levels
* ensuring good governance through service oriented
programmes for the general public, fiscal discipline and transparency
* further consolidating the existing good relations
with neighbouring countries and all friendly nations.
The test of the new government would be -how quickly they
can establish reasonable peace to conduct the elections? Prime minister
Chand has already said that the first task of the government is to
establish peace which is the essential requirement for the elections.
In
another statement he said that he would invite the Maoists for peace
talks. The Maoists will now be talking from a position of strength.
They
would urge talks on substantive issues like the abolition of
constitutional monarchy itself. It is not going to be easy.
With the Maoist insurgency spreading day by day it is
reasonable to expect that it would take a minimum of two years if not
more, to have a "conducive atmosphere" for holding elections. We
may therefore see Nepal having a direct rule by an assertive and all
powerful King Gyanendra for some time to come.
Note: The list of Maoist related incidents during the
period which is given as an appendix with every update will be provided in
the next update.
