The elective local bodies have been without their office-bearers for more than five years, ever since the then Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and his local development minister Khum Bahadur Khadka could neither hold the election, because of Maoist insurgency, to any of the 75 district development committees (DDCs), 58 municipalities and some 4,000 village development committees (VDCs) nor extended their term by one year, as provided for in the law. They refused to extend the local units’ tenure, because the CPN-UML, a rival political party, held two-thirds of the posts in them — 56 DDC chairmen and 51 vice-chairmen (against the undivided Nepali Congress’s 13 and 14 respectively; 41 mayors and 43 deputy mayors (against the NC’s 6 and 13); and 2,329 VDC chairmen (against the NC’s 988). Since then, employees have been running all local units, despite sporadic and largely abortive attempts by successive governments to appoint office-bearers.

After its earlier failure because of the CPN-UML stance to forge a consensus on the distribution of power at the local level, the SPA has started discussing the issue again. The UML is persisting that it should get the biggest proportion of the posts through the application of the same formula as adopted for the distribution of parliamentary seats. Its argument has some merit. But, the reinstatement of the parliament nearly two years ago served just as a stopgap to move on to a new interim political arrangement. During the decade up to that point, the political ground realities had shifted considerably in the country. The legislature not only had proved ineffectual but also had well crossed its five-year term. Admittedly, the UML could not even make a case for the percentage of votes it had polled in the general election for a fairer allocation of seats at a time when the political parties had been emphasising the importance of proportional representation for the CA election. It is doubtful too whether the UML had, then, won any political understanding to that effect.

The Congress has adopted the policy ‘Silence is golden’, as it would gain by any other formula than the past election as the guide. Morally too, it is not in a position to do otherwise. On their part, the Maoists cannot be expected to accept the past as the main basis for interim local governance, not the least because they had ruled much of the countryside during their ‘People’s War’. Maoist local development minister Dev Gurung had proposed a few months ago for equal division of power among the Big Three — the UML, the Congress and the CPN-M. Inflexibility among the parties would continue to keep the operation of the local units in employees’ hands, leading to continued hardship for the general people, as well as to other disadvantages arising from the absence of political office-bearers. Political leadership would also inspire confidence in the donors about local governance. Even if everything goes according to plan, it will not be before two years that fresh local elections are held under the new constitution. It is up to the political parties to decide whether they rule by becoming accommodative, or not at all.