Kathmandu, February 27:

The Constituent Assembly election is the result of the April Revolution which has been widely interpreted as a desire for change in the political system as well as in the way the country is governed. But a key question is: Are we going to see any meaningful change in the people’s representation.

If the selection of candidates in the Nepali Congress is any indication, we are unlikely to see a shift in the power structure of the major political parties.

Although the Nepali Congress has fielded new faces in more than half of the seats for the 240 seats of the Constituent Assembly to be contested under the “first-past-the-post-system,” there has been no fundamental change in the party’s power structure.

“Sushil Koirala and Sher Bahadur Deuba haggled over which of their supporters should get the ticket,” a disgruntled party worker who was given a ticket says. “Some seats trickled to the supporters of others in the party.”

Sher Bahadur Deuba and Sushil Koirala were the key players on the 11-member Parliamentary Committee, which decided the ticket distribution. Others on the committee are Girija Prasad Koirala, K B Gurung, Ram Chandra Poudel, Dr. Ram Baran Yadav, Prakash Man Singh, Bimalendra Nidhi, Gopal Man Shrestha, and Binay Dhoj Chand. K P Bhattarai was also a member, but he has chosen to remain outside the party.

The candidates were selected on the basis of the names received from the districts, NC lawmaker Binay Dhoj Chand says. The parliamentary committee had asked for two -to -six names from each district. And the final selection was done considering their contribution to the party and going through the bio-data of each candidate.

According to Binay Dhoj Chand, NC lawmaker and a selection committee member , there is no fundamental change in the NC power structure compared to the 1991 or 1998 elections. “Everything is decided through discussion,” he said. Many liberals within the party, however, thought that the Constituent Assembly is a new phenomenon in the country, and the party would adopt a new approach in selection of candidates.

“But there was never a discussion about the criteria for the selection of candidates. The basis for giving the tickets was not transparent,” says Narahari Acharya.

Senior leader Chakra Bastola is not also happy. “I would have liked at least 25 % of the seats to be given to young leaders,” he said.

The expected change has not taken place in the party. “It has made the people who didn’t get tickets unhappy, and even those who got tickets are not sure whether they deserved it or not,” says Narahari Acharya, who is contesting the election from Kathmandu Constituency No. 5. A comparative analysis of the candidate selection indicates several trends. There has been an addition of 35 more constituencies, leading to 35 new faces.

Stalwarts and royalists like KP Bhattarai, Shailaja Acharya, GP Koirala, Taranath Ranabhat and Ram Hari Joshi have allowed space for new faces .

Another significant phenomenon is the Madhesi movement. Mahantha Thakur, JP Gupta and Bijay Gachchadar are among the old guard missing from the NC candidates list, allowing space for new faces to emerge.

Most new faces are from the eastern Tarai and from districts in which the Nepali Congress has not done well in the past general elections.

These include the western hill districts where the left has a strong hold, and the central and eastern hill districts where the rightist parties have done well.

About 104 candidates are well known faces, and these are the individuals who traditionally have had a strong hold in the party since 1990.

Even the new faces have had preferential treatment from the selectors at the centre .Young leaders who played a significant role in the overthrow of the monarchy and in the restoration of democracy, like Gagan Thapa, were sidelined. These young leaders, working on the platform of party reforms, are considered a threat to the establishment.

Another major concern is the influence of the Koirala family. There are 11 candidates in the first past the post system who are close kin of Girija Prasad Koirala. All of them hold influential positions within the party.

Krishna Chandra Nepali, who had been the chairman of the Nawalparasi district committee four times, was displaced by Dr. Sashank Koirala, an active medical practitioner based in Kathmandu.