The upcoming election is being held at a time when the popularity of all major parties is declining and people are holding grudges and disenchantment against the established parties and their leaders are growing, which was reflected during local level elections with the election of independent candidates at the municipalities. Knowing the fact that the major parties are, yet, trying to sell out their old political agenda with new packaging and branding with publicity stunts with the purpose of spoiling voters’ minds once again. Their historical achievements are in the high pitch to sell the ideological conception for motivation as the system of federal republicanism and democracy are the panacea for all ills.
As it is true that except for exceptional cases, most revolutions end for a compromised and negotiated settlement, if not wholeheartedly but tacitly, to surrender their ideological dogmatism against the democratic principle, if it has to remain in the political arena within the acceptable frame of political rationalism. In Nepal’s political history, all major revolutionary parties, be that of Nepali Congress, CPN-UML or CPN (Maoist Center) have, in the middle of their revolution, put down their arms and pursued a negotiated settlement. Then CPN ( Maoist) that inflicted a decade-long people’s war for the establishment of their ideologically motivated utopian state of communism in the country could not succeed instead landed in a peaceful settlement succumbing to or converging to the democratic system of governance.
Nepalese insurgency propagated and inflicted by the Maoist revolutionaries in 1996, at the onset, got control and command over a large swathe of landmass of the countryside and encouraged with the success moved ahead to encircle the cities, which because of several reasons and tactical as well as strategic lapses caused to be collapsed.
Communists of all sorts with any suffix in their names in general and particularly the Maoists unsettled behaviour sometimes explicitly or implicitly with the extreme show off in the political parleys reflects a contradictory approach towards democratic participation and exercise. Expression of dissatisfaction over the American grants, for which democracy, liberalism and persuasion of the market economy was the basic requirement for the grants, might be an irritating factor as a stumbling block they might have considered seriously towards the realisation of socialism oriented economy as committed in the Nepalese constitution. A long debate over an American grant named after Millennium Challenge Corporation-Nepal (MCC-Nepal) compact is only a pretext but the ulterior intention is the upcoming elections for all three tiers of governance.
The authoritarian character in any political set-up prefers to play over the contradiction to turn upside down any regimented dictum to bring into its own favor. Mao’s teaching of playing over contradiction be that of Mechanical or Dialectical Materialism, the identity of the opposite for their condensation and fusion is like propagation of prophecy for the communists.
After the 2017 general election, the CPN-UML led by KP Sharman Oli formed the government and later with the merger of another communist party CPN (Maoist Centre) led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' held almost a two-third majority in the parliament. During three years in the government, the then Prime Minister Oli tried every possible move to entertain, glue and hold the authoritarian character of the governance, which was, in the substance of the reflection of a doctrinal approach, an approach as prescribed in Mao’s theory of contradiction, which conceives the sovereign ruler as a 'godly omnipotent figure,’ Ban Wang, “Little Red Book,” Page 269, Published by Cambridge University Press in 2014.
In the realm of the present scenario, in the breakup of the existing united forces of the communist parties and the formation of a coalition of Nepali Congress, CPN (Maoist Centre), NCP (Unified Socialist), Janata Samajbadi Party and Rastriya Janamorcha will facilitate for the decline in the electoral capacity of the left. The principal opposition at the federal parliament CPN-UML which would rejoice in the coalition breakup, if it comes at the cost of political mistrust and mishandling of the coalition partners within in light of UML vying for the next election for a strategic gain.
As the environment takes its momentum and grips in an election mood, there would be an undercurrent between the contesting parties to devise an astute strategy to outmanoeuvre and defeat the rivals. The formation of pre-poll alliances seems unavoidable as the opposing parties are equally trying to outsmart the other in the field. Most possibly, as convinced by core values of the ideological urge, the left parties always count the Nepali Congress as the revisionists and thus their political foe, would reach a common understanding, covertly or overtly, to fight electoral contest against Nepali Congress.
Since CPN-UML secured forty percent of its hold in the local level election held in 2017, declining its popularity remarkably in 2022 as it stood second after Nepali Congress in the local level election held in May this year, many assume that it might have lost its grip due to the split in the party and breakup of its unity with the Maoist Centre. While contemplating and computing its strategic strengths and weakness, based on this presumption, the party itself would avow to regaining and consolidating its whole strength to hold albeit more than its previous position at the local level, which would facilitate its sway in electoral victory in the upcoming federal and provincial elections.
As the communist parties of Nepal are still holding the hangover of the revolution and living under a dystopian state, a utopia of creating a state of proletariat, the myopic proposition that blurs the long sight. Such conditions are visible in both stages either in the feudal regime or in the one-party socialist regime. From a historical perspective, the situation for revolution becomes ripe when the traditional forces like feudalists, imperialists, revisionists, and expansionists hold power that exceeds the exploitation of the mass and people and suffer from poverty, social disharmony, cultural degradation and superstition. If such a situation exists, at first instance, people try to revolt against unjust and authoritative rule be that of the King or any elected leader. It is a natural phenomenon that human does not like to control their lives and property. In case they were suppressed by the state power, they prefer to leave the place as this was evident in a mass migration towards cities in Nepal during the Maoist insurgency.
Once democracy prevails, people take ownership of it and hold root in people’s daily lives as a culture hard to crack and displace by any ill-motivated tyrants or theological or authoritarian leaders.
In every election, there is highly likely that some stooges, persons with criminal backgrounds and tyrants are elected and get hold of public office. Since elections are fought not only in personal traits and capabilities but also muscle, money and social hierarchical power as taken for grant in modern electoral politics. Since the Athenian democracy, Greek writers also wrote that elections is throwing up charismatic leaders with tyrannical pretensions. This is why they considered elections an aristocratic mode of political appointment, quite at odds with democratic principles; and why for much of European history the truly democratic way of filling offices was assumed to be by lottery. (Page 356, The Dawn of Everything)
The upcoming federal and provincial elections, let’s presume, would be a participatory one in essence and process towards strengthening democratic institutions and democracy thereby the left-oriented parties maintain their democratic credential.
(Rajaram Bartaula is a former government official who retired from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Deputy Chief of Protocol.)
