Of late, scientific typologies of new democracies have been based on the characteristics of the preceding authoritarian regimes. One would imagine different types of transitions such as those through transaction, reform, regime defeat, rupture, and even extrication. While various institutional reforms are required to have positive implications for democracy, democratic transition essentially signifies what the author calls ‘failure of authoritarianism or destabilization of the equilibrium of a political regime’ that leads to its eventual replacement by another equilibrium through which the democratic system becomes operationally settled and gains credibility; so, it involves some remaking of political culture and democratic values at both elite and mass levels. Nepal is now a fuzzy state with unsettled issues blurred with oligarchic interests inhibiting the prospects for peace, whereas a benevolent dynamic mechanism is required to have sustainable peace and prosperity; we need a forum where theoreticians, revolutionaries, liberals, radicals, and extremists, even spoilers, can discuss and deliberate without hindrance.

Institutional issues are of obvious relevance to fundamental questions in regime analysis. Those who take an optimistic view may be seeing ‘regime change without democratization’ either because the threesome are having disguised oligopoly or because innumerable conflicts, however clumsy, continue to be a cause of despair. By the same token, Maoists continue to operate significantly with the pretext of their orthodox doctrines, a bankrupt ideology following the end of twentieth century conflict between liberal democracy and Marxist-Leninism, including resurgence of intolerance and lack of self-sustainability. Very few have followed the path of Britain, which moved toward democracy without ever suffering any reversal of democratic gains, but Nepal, already designated as a corrupt state, is fast getting into a vortex of political and physical disintegration and isolation because the current situation will not allow for substantial changes in the political regime.

Things may not come out as planned. How can a democracy be consolidated when those who matter among the upper echelons of society are willing to work for their own advancement, without any regard to the norms. Maoists loudly proclaim themselves as the bastion for constitution-making and democratic consolidation, but keep adhering to classical Marxism peppered with totalitarian tactics rather than have a quest for consensus. In the more conceptual sense, if in the long run the people wish to adopt a proletarian dictatorship that no law, now court or the constitution could stop them. Let us certainly hope the people would not make such a choice, yet again, the president failed in his duties deciding the fate of the Katawal behind closed doors, rather than in an open democratic process by the elected representatives of the people that may act as some other undesirable aspects of democracy to evolve. There have also been communist regimes where reforms did get significant momentum, whereas Nepal suffers from democracy deficit due to irrelevance of party ideologies, skewed electoral rules, rampant corruption, and vulgar cronyism. When we discover the underneath will to install communist regime on the pretext of ‘resilience of nondemocratic governance even when regime change has occurred,’ there is no escape from having a negative impact on the prospects of democracy. Besides, Nepal’s experience corresponds to the struggle against institutionalized discrimination, deliberate marginalization and elite dominated subtle mechanisms.

Max Weber had warned that not even a ‘charismatic authority’ can sustain itself indefinitely; nor can it be supposed to always act responsibly, reasonably and transparently. Nepal’s political scenario rather forbids the emergence of single dominant party, clique, or a charismatic person who can lead without substantial support from others. Ours is not the generic phenomenon of transition characterized with strong leaders and meek people.

States are complex set of institutions that may fail in multiple ways. So long as the efforts continue, Nepal cannot be deemed a failed democracy. But, when malevolent effects are overwhelming due to weird manipulations of political mafia with a range of disruptions and disagreements on every fundamental issue and when the emergence of feckless pluralism along with dirty politics is winning the game, an explicit symptom of the termination of democratic practice is all too vivid. We are vividly in danger of becoming either a neo-caliphate or a hybrid regime with less-than-totalitarian but surely authoritarian governance garnished with inclusiveness, pluralism, re-equilibrium, and so on. The eventual outcome of the current political exercise essentially depends on the three-party power politics, especially their monolithic leadership. Indeed, Nepal might face yet another phase of indefinite transition; for no issue is too trivial to be left untreated.

Thapa is Professor of Politics, TU