Nepal
New York Times
Seth Sherwood for The New York Times
Updated: May 29, 2012
Nepal is a nation of 27 million people wedged strategically between India and China. Once a Hindu monarchy, it ismaking a traumatic transition to democracy.
On Feb. 3, 2011, Nepal’s bitterly divided legislature elected a new prime minister, which ended a month-long stalemate in the country. Competing political parties had fought to control the government. The new prime minister, Jhalanath Khanal, called upon the parties to work together in finishing a new constitution that is expected to restructure the government.
But in mid-August 2011, Mr. Khanal resigned, acknowledging that he had failed to advance a stagnant peace process or agree with the opposition on a new constitution, tasks he had promised to accomplish when he was elected to his post by a parliamentary vote.
In late August, Nepal’s deeply fractured Parliament elected Baburam Bhattarai, a Maoist, as the country’s new prime minister.
Mr. Bhattarai is a senior leader and intellectual force in the United Communist Party of Nepal, which gave up armed rebellion in a 2006 peace accord and unexpectedly won the most seats, though not an outright majority, in the 2008 legislative elections.
He faces the same thorny problems that made previous governments of Nepal short-lived: how to reintegrate the 19,000 former fighters of the Maoist rebellion back into civilian society or the army, and how to balance power in a permanent new constitution for the country.
The other two major parties — the non-Communist Nepali Congress Party and a rival Communist group, known as the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) — remain in opposition, and to win Mr. Bhattarai needed support from smaller parties that could withdraw it at any time.
Another Political Crisis
In May 2012, Nepal descended into a new crisis after rival political parties failed to reach an agreement on a new constitution before the national legislature’s term expired at midnight.
Prime Minister Bhattarai, speaking on national television, announced that the legislature, known as the Constituent Assembly, would be dissolved. He said he would remain in power and that his government would hold November elections for a new assembly. Rival political leaders quickly denounced the plan as a power grab.
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The Constituent Assembly was elected to a two-year term in 2008, but that term was extended again and again after rival political parties failed to cut a deal on a new constitution. This time, Nepal’s Supreme Court ruled that the term could not be extended. Mr. Bhattarai said his decision to hold elections in November was consistent with options outlined by the Supreme Court, in case the deadline was missed.
Other political leaders blasted the decision, saying that the prime minister should have followed a different option, under which the Constituent Assembly would be allowed to become a parliament that could continue to try to hammer out a constitutional deal.
Distrust runs deep among Nepal’s three biggest political parties, and negotiations broke down on May 27 after the rival parties could not agree on the federalist structure for the government under the new constitution.
In mid-May, the three parties and the Madhesi alliance, a group of parties from the region along the Indian border, had agreed to create states whose borders would be designed to include members of different ethnic groups. However, the Maoists later withdrew from the deal following opposition from indigenous groups and some of the smaller Madhesi parties.
These smaller parties want boundaries in which states would be based on ethnicity, ensuring that minorities would be able to accumulate greater political power by forming a majority in certain states. Opponents of this idea argued that such a structure would only perpetuate and deepen ethnic divisions in the country.
The issue of ethnic states has sparked protests and violence across Nepal. While political leaders were gathered inside the prime minister’s residence, people rallied outside, chanting slogans for and against ethnic-based federalism. Roads near the Constituent Assembly building were filled with people singing or dancing, as different sides tried to rally support.
The continued political instability in Nepal will only worsen the situation in a tiny country pinned between China and India. Power failures have become common, while the economy has been battered because of the country’s political uncertainty.
Background
A guerrilla war ended in 2006 after Maoist rebels agreed to stop fighting and form a political party.The Maoistsunexpectedly won a plurality in 2008 national elections and assumed control of the government before walking away from power roughly nine months later in a dispute over control of the military.
The disaffection inflamed an already difficult situation: Nepal faced a self-imposed deadline to complete its peace process and draft a new constitution by May 2010. Unable to meet that deadline,its special legislative body extended the deadline andinstalled a caretaker prime minister until lawmakers could electa permanent leader.
Butas rival leaders vied for the job, nonecould muster the required majority vote.The lawmakers failed in 16 previous votes to choose a winner.
There are also stark differences between the Maoists and other parties over the constitution, with somelawmakers accusing the Maoists of trying to subvert the process to weaken institutions that would support a multiparty democracy. The Maoists have denied such charges and blamed other parties for trying to maintain their grip on power at the expense of the country’s poor.