That the constitution would not be finished by the deadline of May 28, 2010 became apparent when there was a proposal to form a state restructuring commission with only three months left to go. It has now been proven. The three big parties bear the primary responsibility. But the 21 small parties cannot escape from their share of the responsibility either. They could have raised a joint front (Morcha) to pressurise the three big parties to desist from the suicidal path. Instead, 20 of them joined a conspiratorial move of the UML and the NC to keep the largest party out of power. The result — the country has plunged into the darkest chaos in history.
The Interim Constitution was a suicidal document. It did not conceive of a provision to manage the void that would result should the coveted constitution not be finished on time. It did think of an emergency. But the present state cannot be defined as a state of emergency. Nobody has a prescription as to how to rescue the political process. The dream of an all-party consensus has evaporated. The Constituent Assembly’s tenure is going to expire in a week. The parties are talking about a fresh election. But it is not clear what for and by whom. Is it an election to a second CA? Is it an election to the national legislature? Are we doomed to see the same faces of the fat leaders of the failed parties who could not draft the constitution? More importantly, who will determine who will run the country during the vacuum? The pre sent government has lost all legitimacy to continue. The Maoists closed all the doors of their entry by indulging in protests which boomeranged against themselves.
When the political machinery of a country is incapable of running a system in the resultant instability, there are two probable options to save the nation from collapse. It has been seen that in better organised, law abiding societies, there is a civil machinery, an organised bureaucracy, to take over and provide stability and bring order by invoking healthy provisions of the system like conducting fresh elections. There are two layers of authority in such societies: the political authority which makes policies and the bureaucratic authority which is responsible for implementation of the policies. The advantage of this bureaucratic authority is that it is stable, capable and politically non-partisan. It works within well established laws and has been empowered by the state. It is manned by the best trained manpower of the country. It keeps the country going during any time of crisis. France before the enforcement of the fifth republic, Italy and Israel can be cited as examples where the civilian authority has provided stability during various periods of political instability.
But in more disorganised societies, there is a trend of the military to take over. In many cases, the military option has been an indigenous outcome; but in other cases, strong foreign instigation has been seen. The US CIA has caused a number of military take-overs in several South American states where the people elected political parties that were not favoured by the CIA. The Americans supported the military leadership in Pakistan for several decades. The CIA has not taken strong steps to discourage the military government in Yangon to make space for the political leadership. Pakistan’s democratic credentials are still not reassuring and capable of stopping the military from further usurpation of power. The Myanmar military government has not shown any inclination to shed state power and make space for political authority. The military governance has never, nowhere, been pro-people, pro-democracy and pro-justice and peace. It has thrived in chaos because its premise is absolute power. The most powerful democracy, the USA, has empowered Zia-ul-Haqs, Musharrafs and Pinochets; but it has failed to fertilise the seeds of democracy in these countries.
What is the probability in Nepal? In the eventuality of the political machinery failing, the preferred option is for the bureaucracy to take over the transitional management of the state. Can that happen? In a sweeping observation, it can be said that the civil bureaucracy has itself been the victim of political authorities. The monarchy could not let it grow as an organised institution because it would mean real decentralisation of power. The monarchy wanted to keep the bureaucracy subservient to the palace. The palace bureaucracy always kept the bureaucracy in Singha Durbar under its control. The so-called restoration of democracy did not prove healthy for the civil bureaucracy. It was degraded and corrupted through over politicisation. Instead of steady institutionalisation of bureaucracy as a non-political institution, the parties in power started to build their own wings of bureaucrats, thus breaking the basic unity of bureaucracy and dividing the bureaucrats into Congress or Communist brands. The emergence of the Maoist party has further divided the bureaucrats by creating a third group of “revolutionary bureaucrats”.
In the wake of a full collapse of the political machinery, there is a distant possibility that there will be a military takeover, but I don’t see it as a probability. The military has been raised in Nepal for most of its life under the command of the monarchy. It was always supposed to stand by the side of the king. In 1960, king Mahendra did use it as a means to eliminate the democratically elected parliament and the cabinet. But it has since been seen as a professional organisation, indifferent to the political moods and modes, except for its use to control the Maoist insurgents in which its performance remained unconvincing. It failed to check the spread of the Maoists who became its professed adversary in the intense moments of the insurgency even with the direct command of king Gyanendra. The Maoist government’s dismissal of the ex-chief of army staff and the president’s action cancelling the dismissal order did bring bad press to the army, but it did not raise the possibility of the army grabbing power. As of now, it can be said that the army has not indicated a taste for state power.
Thus, in the unfortunate culmination of the political stalemate with the lapse of the CA’s life on the eve of May 28, the logical step would be for the civil bureaucracy to take over. There is no other legitimate successor. The present cabinet was created to support the process of constitution building and peace making. With the process itself having been terminated, the legitimacy of the government will also be terminated. The responsibility of recreating the process should, therefore, fall on the shoulders of the bureaucratic institution. Luckily, the institution of the Election Commission is intact. It should make a practical timetable and conduct fresh elections to a second CA to draft a new constitution. There should be one explicit provision that no leader of the political parties will be eligible for election to the CA. This is not only a punishment for having broken their promise in the first CA’s tenure, but also to prevent the possibility of its repetition.
Given the patient neutrality maintained by the Army, it is hoped that they will remain at the back of the civil government, as a deterrent against volatile political disturbances during the election and the tenure of the next CA. The CA will not need more than one year to draft the constitution. The civil government will conduct elections to the new parliament and retire after handing over power to the people’s representatives hopefully at the end of one more year. That may herald full political stability.
knsad66@yahoo.com


Courtesy:ekantipur.com