Finally, the Unified Communist Party of Nepal, Maoist (UCPNM) has started stalling the Legislature-Parliament (LP) and will protest in the streets as well indefinitely as per the decision taken by its Central Committee a few days ago. Their decisions

are related to two issues:

establishing civil supremacy over the military and the rectification of the unconstitutional action of the president reinstating the dismissal of the out-going Chief of Army Staff (CoAS) on May 3, 2009.Actually these two demands are related to the continuity of the services of the CoAS.

The stalling of the LP is not a new phenomenon but a regular one as almost all parties have stalled the House proceedings during the last fifteen months of its existence. The Maoists appear to have a three-point strategy. First, they have to paralyse the functioning of the government on the one hand and prove the ineffectiveness of the government in the eyes of the common people that the present government has no practical ability to govern the country. Secondly, they want to prove that they are the only force, which can run the government smoothly and constitutionally as they have been voted by the people as the single largest party in the CA. Thirdly, they want to engage their cadres in some kind of activities like agitating in the streets or at the gate of the central secretariat and district headquarters as they have been found taking part in trivial activities like thrashing people and shtting down factories, etc.

It is not warranted to

support or oppose the stalling of the House, but it is an opportune time to look at the functions and desirability of the LP. It is asked sometimes whether it is proper that the minority should dominate the majority in the CA in the name of consensus. Does it fall under the purview of the normal practices of the parliamentary system? Has the speaker unrestricted right to overlook the right of the majority in the House? How long will the House remain suspended for the sake of consensus? No doubt, the Interim Constitution (IC) provides for consensus among the seven parties for the smooth running of the government and writing of the new constitution. But can we afford to ignore the political reality when the election results have changed the very chemistry of the elected CA in which 25 parties have registered their existences at the behest of the people’s mandate. What does the consensus among the parties mean in this context?

Regarding the desirability of the LP, the IC has only

one Article-83 which provides under the heading,” Acting in the capacity of Legislative-Parliament (1) Notwithstanding anything contained elsewhere in

this Part, the Constituent Assembly shall also act

as Legislature-Parliament

as long as the Constituent Assembly remains in

existence, and the Constituent Assembly may

constitute a separate

committee to conduct necessary regular legislative functions.” Interestingly, it has not been mentioned that the LP will function till fresh elections are held for the highest legislature in accordance with the provisions of the new constitution adopted by the CA.

It seems to be an irony that against the provision of the IC for constituting a separate committee to conduct necessary regular legislative functions, the entire CA was converted into the LP. This proves that they ignored the suggestion of the constitution? Perhaps, visualising the problematic LP in the future the IC suggested the alternative.

As a matter of fact, to some, even this suggestion was hardly called for, as there is a time limit of two years for the CA for adopting the new constitution, and the CA itself could have carried out the occasional businesses intermittently. The political parties took the LP as a normal Parliament.

It led them to get unnecessarily involved in the

formalities related to the

LP. Had they been clear in their thoughts, formalities like annual inauguration of the LP, passing the budget and detailed discussion on ministry wise provisions could have been shortened. Issues like promotion and transfer could have been done on broad policies or could have been assigned to an independent body to deal with. Instead of involving themselves in government formation, they could have devoted time on crucial issues like adjustment and rehabilitation of the combatants and providing relief to the victims

The Maoists, in their

continued agitations, will either succeed or fail. If

they succeed, they will form their government with the support of some parties.

But they know that it will be difficult for them to draft and get the new constitution passed as per their

political philosophy.

So they appear to be

reluctant in drafting the constitution. If they fail

now, their cadres may get frustrated and may part ways. Hence, they will exert pressure on the government by keeping their cadres

busy continuously till they have their government and use them for meeting their future strategy.

(Prof. Mishra is former election commissioner)