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Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat, former Finance Minister, Member, Nepali Congress
Mr. Pradip Nepal, Spokesman, Communist Party of Nepal (UML)
Mr. Pashupati Shamsher Rana, President, Rastriya Prajatantra Party
Dr. Minendra Rijal, Spokesman, Nepali Congress (Democratic)
Mr. Pari Thapa, Vice Chairman, National People's Front
Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat: Neither the King nor the political parties have instant solution to the Maoist problem. The Maoists believe that they are fighting a winning war to create new history; they consider their struggle as part of the world proletarian revolution and have no faith in multi-party politics and liberal democracy. It takes both political and military approach to confront, weaken, and compel them to negotiate under reasonable terms and conditions. A vibrant democracy with its functioning institutions, and not a monarchy, is the mechanism needed for conflict reconciliation. Solutions are not easy. They will take efforts, energy and time.
Political parties were more preoccupied with power game, for which, they played fair and foul. This gave birth to unstable governments, extra-constitutional coercion by the opposition, rampant corruption and abuse of authorities, leading intra-part in-fighting. These must be corrected, and political parties do realize that, as evident in the parliamentary action for strong anti-defection legislation and draconian laws against corruption. Capitalizing this, the Maoists shrewdly exploited the vulnerabilities and fault-lines of the Nepalese society to expand their organization. The history of exclusion and neglect of various ethnic communities and caste groups, the monopoly of centralized state power, wide spread poverty, backwardness and unemployment gave fertile habitat for their appeal. Moreover, they took the advantage of extreme remoteness and difficult terrain. All sides are to blame for this. The state response was slow, and made difficult by frequent changes in governments.
Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat is the former Finance Minister and an influential second generation leader within the Nepali Congress, the largest political party in Nepal, which won 111 seats and 36 per cent of the total votes in the 1999 general election.
Mr. Pradip Nepal: There are four key factors responsible for strengthening of the Maoist movement: (a) poverty, inequity and regional imbalance in development; (b) feudalism in State and the government; (c) internal democracy within the thoughts and deeds of Nepali Congress which formed the majority governments after the 1990 movement; (d) unprogressive bureaucracy which was not willing to identify and tackle the problem and find progressive solutions. For this much-intricated problem to be solved now, the Maoists must now leave violence and come to the table, present their political agenda, participate in peaceful competitive politics, and accept the fact that there is no solution in Nepal to the multi-party parliamentary system where people are the sovereign. The political parties must learn that democracy is for all including those with marginal incomes. The King must go back to being constitutional and depart from political activities while the RNA must limit itself to development activities. India and the international community must provide aid after peace and democracy are restored in Nepal.
The ten year insurgency has helped the political parties see their roots while the latest steps taken by the King and the current government policy on the Maoists reveal that the King has not yet figured out the rebels. The Maoist problem is not unsolvable. They have already presented their political, economic and social positions. The 38-point demands are reformist demands which any political party led government can accept. Those who cannot accept those demands are the King-led government, as has been clear in the repeated statements given by the current ministers.
Had the political parties not made mistakes in running the country after the 1990 movement, the extreme rightists and the leftists would not have surfaced now. Unhealthy rivalry between the ruling and the opposition parties, lack of trust, totalitarianism were the political junk that prevailed during democracy in Nepal while accountability to the people deteriorated badly. This made the government people?s master and not its servant, which in a way is a form of dictatorship. The political parties have identified their weaknesses now, to a certain extent, and have shown commitment to correct those. No one can predict the future, but we now have to hope that the parties will remain honest in their commitment.
Mr. Pradip Nepal is the Spokesman for the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) which secured 71 seats and 31 per cent of the total votes in the 1991 general election.
Mr. Pasupati Shamsher Rana:
Negotiatons with the objective of a thoroughly transformed, fully inclusive Nepal in which parties, king and Maoists co-exist. The Maoist problem can only be resolved by a sincere cooperation between king and parties. We should rise above all these to surmount the national crisis and the crying needs of the people.
Pashupati Shamsher Rana is the former Minister of the Water Resources and the Chairman of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party which won 11 seats and 10 per cent of the votes in the 1999 election before a faction, Janashakti Party, split away.
Dr. Minendra Rijal: There is not an easy answer to our problem. Only through the peace dialogue process, each side can better understand and appreciate other side?s positions and be able to propose imaginative solutions. The political parties and King have a responsibility to work it out together and propose imaginative solution to the Maoist problem. One such solution could be the establishment of an interim government to hold election for the constituent assembly to draft a new constitution that preserves Nepal?s tradition, ensures means to keep the King within the constitutional limits and further strengthens and consolidates the democratic characteristics of the current constitution.
For an outlet from this quagmire, the political parties should review their less than exemplary way of governance, and can develop the common minimum program for the political, social and economic transformation of the country. This could serve as a roadmap that they can offer to both the King and the Maoists as a way out of the current crisis. India and the rest of the international community should continue to exert moral pressure on the King should use whatever leverage they have with the Maoists to have them renounce violence and accept peaceful and democratic means to pressure their agenda.
Nepal has a long history of political and social marginalization. With the advent of democracy, there was a great expectation that these problems will soon be addressed. Understandably, there were no quick fixes to these problems. However, the political parties failed to even set a clear roadmap to address these problems. Inability to understand the heterogeneity of Nepali society, lack of political tolerance, poor governance, corruption, inability to decentralize the structure of government, development programs with inherent and undue bias toward the urban and modern sector of the economy, less than exemplary inner party democracy are some of the examples. Unless we are prepared for a peaceful yet revolutionary restructuring of the structure of our state to generate a sense of belongingness among Nepalis of all identities (gender, ethnicity, culture, religion, language, caste, economic strata etc), we will simply not have a way out of the present crisis.
Dr. Minendra Rijal is the Party Spokesman of Nepali Congress (Democratic), a faction of the largest political party in Nepal, led by Former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.
Mr. Pari Thapa: There is no ready-made Nikas to a complicated and chaotic situation as the current one. Regarding the Maoists, they should lay the arms down and demonstrate their willingness for a ceasefire. The mainstream political parties were and are seeking for a solution through a meaningful peace-dialogue. Regarding the King and the RNA, we don't see the RNA as a distinct body from the King himself -- they are two sides of one coin. The RNA separately has nothing to do with the problematic situation. If the King genuinely acts towards resolving the crisis, the RNA will come be the part of the solution.
As India is an immediate neighboring country of Nepal, its importance is self-evident. The pro-democracy forces in Nepal anticipate India?s positive role in restoring democracy. The international communities should play a supportive role in favor of democracy pressurizing the King to retreat from his regressive step.
The People's Front Nepal knows the true nature of the Maoist insurgency as they were the former splinters from our party. It's obvious that until and unless they correct their mistaken ideas and views they will continue their activities, no matter its size and influence may remain the same as it does have now. But we also can't lose sight of the fact that the political parties also manipulated it as the means of cornering the opposition. The King has taken advantage of it as well: it is the Maoist insurgency that provided the handiest pretext for the King to usurping the state-power, and it is due to that he is making a damn cheap business of "peace." But, such a senile peace has nothing to do with the broader masses of the people who are longing for a relative peace matching to a dynamic society and full-fledge democracy.
The political parties should make the political criticism of the ?ultra-left? deviation of the Maoists. Our party is uncompromisingly doing so. If the mainstream political parties are ready to build a consensus creating a conducive environment to hold the elections for constituent assembly with its all prerequisites (for instance, provided that formation of an all-party democratic government, may it be a interim one, through preserving the democratic rights, norms and values that are inherited by the constitution-1991) that will be a moderate instrumental way out to bring the Maoists back to the mainstream politics through a democratic and peaceful means.
There are no reasons and grounds to believe that the King will solve the problem in a better way. It is proven that monarchy is a historically flopped and a self-isolating institution. It is maintaining such narrow boundaries that it cannot go beyond the circle of a handful of former orthodox Panchas. It is so conservative that it showed its inability to incorporate even the liberal of the Panchas. It has been gheraoed by its flatterers and genuflectors.
Yes, the parties, especially, those in the government over the period of last fifteen years, have made serious mistakes on their part. So, they should uphold corrective measures without any delay from now onwards. I have cited some major mistaken trends and attitude no. 1. After the historic people's movement, Panchayat was ousted and multi-party pluralistic system was introduced, but we just Xeroxed the Westminster system i.e. winner-takes-all system. In other words, it is a system that the strongest one has the chances to capture all the resources, and they drove the chariot of the state power accordingly. Thereupon lies one of the immense errors, and the seed of the structural violence was sewn. A bold and enthusiastic step is now essential to make the people give the ownership of the state in a country which has a heterogeneous society and diverse cultural identities.
Mr. Pari Thapa is the Vice Chairman of the National Peoples? Front (Rastriya Janamorcha) which won 1 seat and 1.3 per cent of the votes in the general election of 1999.
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