NEPAL: Citizens Rush to Reform

By Marty Logan Reprint | | Print |

Marty Logan

KATHMANDU, Jul 17 2006 (IPS) - Most people who rushed to Laxman Prasad Aryal’s office before Thursday’s deadline had one demand for the constitution drafter: declare Nepal a republic. Members of parliament, on the other hand, were showing no signs they are serious about reform, Aryal told IPS on Thursday.

“There is heavy pressure on us to declare a republic…but as this is an interim constitution, it can’t make such a permanent provision,” added Aryal in an evening interview at his home in the capital Kathmandu, while members of his Interim Constitution Drafting Committee worked overtime taking suggestions from Nepali citizens.

The committee had not even planned to consult the public “but the people were very eager (to contribute). They said ‘you must incorporate our wishes’,” added the former Supreme Court justice. Aryal also helped draft the 1990 constitution that was created after the first ‘people’s movement’ forced then King Birendra to grant multi-party democracy in this small South Asian nation wedged between giants India and China.

Today’s committee was formed by politicians in the House of Representatives that was restored after April’s ‘people’s movement II’ forced Birendra’s brother, King Gyanendra, to give up direct rule. Its job is to set rules for dissolving the house, replacing it with an interim government and conducting elections to a constituent assembly that will draft a new, permanent constitution.

The temporary constitution will “possibly” be in force two years until a new one is completed, suggested Aryal, who was jailed for 18 days during April’s movement for protesting against a day-long curfew.

Reviving the House of Representatives was one point in an agreement signed between seven mainstream political parties (united as the SPA) and Maoist rebels in 2005. The MPs were to govern temporarily until elections to a constituent assembly, which is a long-standing Maoist demand.

The rebels believe that only such a representative body can create a new political system that represents women, indigenous people and Dalits (so-called ‘untouchables’) who have been excluded from power throughout modern Nepal’s 237-year history. In 1996 the Maoists launched their uprising to fight for those “oppressed people’s” rights and to replace the constitutional monarchy with a republic.

Today the Maoists are no longer on ‘most wanted’ lists and their leaders are waging a war of words with the government led by Nepali Congress Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala. Rebel chiefs accuse the politicians of reneging on their promise to dissolve the house while the politicians say they will not create an interim government until the rebels surrender their arms.

The politicians are more interested in their jobs than the country’s future, according to Aryal. “I told MPs, ‘there’s a conspiracy in this house against making the interim constitution. To delay it is to delay the constituent assembly’.”

Aryal described the future interim government as “a kind of popular assembly that will act as a legislature and include the seven parties and Maoists. The Maoists are saying that civil society should be included but the seven parties do not want that because if there are more components, they will have fewer seats.”

On Thursday, civil society leaders announced they will stage a sit-in next week to protest the government’s slow progress towards elections for the constituent assembly.

Women also have condemned the government. No women were named to the six-member constitution drafting committee in June, which provoked female politicians, activists and their supporters to block streets and picket political leaders’ offices. Aryal said Thursday that more members are likely to be added to the committee Friday: three women and one man.

Among the more than 100 people who made written submissions to the drafting committee, Purushottam Prasad Pokharel wanted a guarantee of equal rights for women and an end to the illegal, but common, practice of polygamy. “We want a guarantee of all people’s rights, a guarantee of democracy forever,” said the member of the mainstream United Marxist-Leninist wing of the Communist Party of Nepal.

Pokharel’s other demands included “a ceremonial monarchy where the king has no real powers” and a broader foreign policy so Nepal would not have to rely on its huge southern neighbour India. “Since 1950, most agreements between the two countries have not favoured Nepal,” Pokharel told IPS.

Yogi Sattyanand from the World Religious Research Council told the committee “the political leaders are failing. They should not be so political, they should be honest. People who preach peace should put it into practice first but I haven’t seen that yet,” he said in an interview Tuesday at the government office where employees collected submissions and placed them in a file for delivery to the committee at the end of the day.

The 1990 constitution is now widely considered flawed because it contained a loosely-drafted provision that King Gyanendra cited to justify his February 2005 takeover and also because it did not empower the “disadvantaged” who make up more than two-thirds of the population.

Aryal said the next constitution will not repeat those mistakes. “The motivation is different: in 1990 there was not such an open, overt opinion that the people should be sovereign. The main purpose of the first people’s movement was to win a party system…This time the people’s movement was directed against the king.”

Pokharel said the people have no choice but to be optimistic. “We trust that the Communist Party, the Maoists and some people from the Nepali Congress will unite for the good of the country. We have to trust, otherwise in five years we’ll go back to the same situation.”