POLITICS-NEPAL: Demonstrations Fail to Ignite Popular Protests

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Analysis - By Suman Pradhan

KATHMANDU, Apr 19 2004 (IPS) - The popular press in Nepal has been sounding out the drumbeat of a growing opposition-launched “peoples’ movement” against King Gyanendra. Screaming headlines tell of the thousands of protestors marching across the capital Kathmandu, demanding restoration of a representative government.

Yet what is portrayed in the newspapers is far removed from what is happening on the streets here.

Except for the area around the heart of the city, the masses of demonstrators fighting to roll back “regression” in recent days are nowhere to be seen. Most Kathmandu residents continue with their daily lives, living a routine that is cut off from the protests and rioting.

“I could have easily joined in the movement, but I ask, what purpose will that serve,” Rajesh Shrestha, a shopkeeper who was actively engaged in the 1990 movement, says to IPS. “I don’t want to be supporting the same politicians who made this country such a mess.”

This is not what the five opposition parties – Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, Nepal Sadbhavana Party (Anandi Devi), Nepal Majdoor Kisan Party and Peoples’ Front Nepal – had hoped to hear when they launched their latest phase of anti-king demonstrations on Apr. 1.

Coinciding with the 14th anniversary of the 1990 Peoples’ Movement, which turned Nepal into a constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy, the five major opposition parties had hoped to emulate that success again.

The idea was, and is, to pressure King Gyanendra to hand back to the parties the power he seized in a bloodless royal coup in October 2002.

The protests did begin with a bang for a few days in early April, bringing out tens of thousands of people, mostly party activists, on the streets to demand a return to democracy.

Some protests turned violent, leading to pitched battles between demonstrators and police. So far, nearly 1,000 protestors and police have been injured and about 5,000 party supporters arrested.

But in recent days, the dearth of public participation is forcing the parties to confront an uneasy reality: their movement is losing steam, and the King and his royalist government show no signs of bowing as a result.

“The movement is losing steam and the parties are uneasy,” B Lamichhane, a supporter of the Nepali Congress party which is spearheading the agitation, admits privately. “They have to do a tactical rethink and fast.”

In many ways, the lack of public support for the movement reflects just how low the political parties have fallen in the eyes of the voters.

When they ruled Nepal for 12 years from 1990 to 2002, the parties indulged in corruption, nepotism and brought in political instability by frequently pulling down each other’s governments. “The parties seem to be paying for their misdeeds during the democratic years,” says Carolyn Rodal, a researcher from the United States who is following the movement closely. “In a way, the lack of public support may be good because it could force the parties to institute reforms.”

But that is highly unlikely at the moment. Krishna Hachhethu, a political scientist with the Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies, says that it is unreaslistic to expect the parties to reform their ways when they are fighting against an active monarchy that is seen as being intent on wiping out democracy.

“The parties will need to win back power before they can even discuss reforms,” he says. “At the moment, they are all united in fighting the King.”

The parties are confounded about why the people have not supported their movement in large numbers. Madhav Nepal, the powerful general secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist), hopes that the people will soon come out to support the parties. “We are not going to let up our fight for democracy. There will be more and more people joining the movement in coming days,” he says bravely.

But if the opposition believes it can repeat the success of 1990, it appears to be mistaken. The situation today is nothing like 14 years ago when the original Peoples’ Movement ultimately brought down an absolute monarch and ushered in an imperfect era of multi-party democracy and constitutional monarchy.

Today, it is no longer a docile King Birendra who reigns over Nepal, but his younger brother King Gyanendra, whose overriding aim seems to be to avoid his brother’s fate. There is no longer 30 years of pent-up public frustrations to fuel a popular movement, as was the case in 1990.

The international environment too is not the same. While new democracies were sprouting up all over the world in 1990 in the wake of the end of the Cold War, today, the ‘global fight against terrorism’ means that the democratic struggle often takes the back seat to the violent eight-year-old Maoist insurgency.

The biggest difference however is that the anti-king demonstrations were not split between the parties and the Maoists, as it is now. The violent Maoist insurgency since 1996 has claimed nearly 9,500 lives, and most Nepalis want the King and the parties to make peace and deal jointly with the rebels, who are demanding a republican state.

While the movement does seem to be fizzling out now, the potential for a rebound is strong – in the wake of the use of pro-government groups and plainclothes policemen to disrupt the protests and the recent move by the Home Ministry to isolate and prosecute leaders and supporters of Peoples’ Front Nepal, one of the opposition parties.

But the movement could also go the other way. Some analysts believe that in their desperation, the parties could join hands with the Maoists to fight the monarchy together.

The parties however are understandably wary of the rebels. “We do not have any common platform with the Maoists and we don’t plan on having any in the future,” asserts Dr Ram Sharan Mahat, a senior leader of the Nepali Congress.

Meanwhile, the target of the agitation, King Gyanendra, has followed a smart strategy. After waiting out much of the protests touring insurgency-hit western districts, the king has continued to ignore the protests. He pointedly failed to even mention the demonstrations or make any concessions in his customary Nepali New Year’s message on Apr. 13.

But the king could also be misreading the people’s mood. They may not trust the parties and their agitation, but they do not view the monarchy in a favourable light either. (END/IPS/AP/IP/HD/SP/JS/04)