Rebels as rulers

The onus of redefining the Nepali identity and state structure now rests with the Constituent Assembly, with the Maoists in the lead.

in Kathmandu

Five days before the elections to the 601-strong Constituent Assembly of Nepal on April 10, Prachanda, chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), was on a campaign trail in his constituency on the outskirts of Kathmandu. In villages around Pharping, he stopped for half an hour each, greeted and shook hands with supporters, and made short speeches.

He talked about how the hill landscape, grinding poverty and roads reminded him of the early days of the Maoist rebellion in 1996. While coming up, I thought this place, right outside Kathmandu, was so much like our base areas in Rukum and Rolpa. We will make this a new city. Seamlessly moving from the local to the national, Prachanda continued: Vote for us to make a new Nepal a federal, democratic, republican Nepal. The Constituent Assembly is our agenda and we have sacrificed the most to come till here.

Even as the Maoist supremo was making his campaign pitch, the conversations inside Kathmandus Ring Road in media offices, diplomatic missions and party offices revolved around how the Maoists, at best, will come a distant third. There was worry about what the former insurgents would do if the results were poor.

In Pharping, as Prachanda finished a quick meal, a group of journalists asked him what he thought of the doomsday predictions. Looking in the eye, with a slight smile, his head and body shaking, he replied, You have all got it wrong. If the elections are free and fair, nothing can stop us from getting a majority. There is a lahar, a wave, in our favour. Mark my words, the Maoists will get 140 direct constituency seats. His words were prophetic. The CPM(N) has emerged as the single largest party in the House.

Kathmandu is regretting not taking Prachandas prediction more seriously. As the former rebel chief said, the Maoists have won more than half the 240 seats in the first-past-the-post system. And they have garnered one-third of the vote in the proportional representation system, which would enable them to get another 110 or more out of the 335 seats allotted for proportional representation. Though short of a simple majority, the Maoists are, by far, the biggest party in the House.

Exactly two years after the peoples movement, a ceasefire, and the entry of the Maoists into the peace process, the former insurgents will legitimately take over the reins of power in Kathmandu. They have won democratic legitimacy through the elections, held largely peacefully and which saw around 60 per cent turnout.

As results were trickling in, there was introspection and post-mortem in the capital on the Maoist victory and its implications. A set of immediate challenges lay ahead. A new government will be formed on the basis of the new balance of power. Monarchy has to be abolished by the first sitting of the Constituent Assembly. The Nepali Congress (N.C.) and the Communist Party of Nepal (UML) have to learn to work as junior partners in the power structure. The Maoists have to contend with a new regional force the Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum (MJF) which has scored a resounding victory in the countrys plains, the Terai. There will also be the challenge of getting the Army to submit itself to the civilian control of the Maoists, besides moving ahead on the issue of integrating former Maoist combatants.

If there is one common message that can be read from the verdict, it is that the people of Nepal were desperate for a change. Old parties have been dislodged; established faces have been humiliated. New forces the Maoists in the hills and the MJF in the eastern and central plains capitalised on the mood, where the establishment was synonymous with the N.C. and the UML. And it was this fear of status quo that Kathmandu failed to sense.

Calculations were based on the understanding that the N.C. still had the organisational machinery that would spring back to life at election time, that traditional loyalties and patronage would work, that the local elites would coalesce around the party, and that the disunity among Madhesi parties would help the N.C. maintain its vote base in the Terai.

The UML thought it would come on top. Its general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal, in fact, told an international delegation a day before the elections that he would be the countrys next Prime Minister. The party was banking on an energetic organisation, a centre-left image, and the support of the petty bourgeoisie. The fact that elections had not been held for nine years, that ethnic and Left politics has emerged and that there has been a generational shift also made predictions difficult.

The anti-incumbency mood was best reflected in the way the top leaders of the N.C. and the UML were decimated. N.C.s acting president Sushil Koirala, Prime Minister G.P. Koiralas daughter Sujata Koirala, Shekhar Koirala, a key intermediary of the peace process, and Home Minister Krishna Prasad Situala were among the prominent losers marking a possible end to dynastic rule in the N.C. and its disproportionate power share in Kathmandu. The UML top brass, including Madhav Kumar Nepal, were also routed. However, the Maoist victory cannot be explained in terms of resentment against the big parties.

With a remarkable pan-Nepal organisational structure, and a committed young cadre, the Maoists reached out to the ground. In a brilliant marketing campaign, the former insurgents sold themselves as the principal agents of change and capitalised on the support of the young, women, the poor and marginalised groups.

At a Kathmandu seminar, anthropologist Judith Pettigrew narrated her experience of seeing elections in her area of fieldwork in Kaski district. In the village where I work, the Peoples Liberation Army came and spent a few months after the ceasefire in 2006. People were slowly forgetting fear. The Maoists constantly engaged with the locals. And young Gurung men, who had earlier told me they disliked the Maoists, gradually switched allegiances, convinced that the Maoists offered hope.

Scholar Mukta Tamang talked about how the young in his village in Kavre district went against the older lot who were more comfortable with traditional parties. These young people, many of them workers outside the village, insisted that the Maoists had raised issues of the marginalised ethnic groups and must be given a chance.

No doubt, a degree of pre-electoral intimidation and some electoral malpractice helped the Maoists. Identifying these as the major reasons for the Maoist win would obviously be a misinterpretation of the results. But ignoring these factors would not be correct either.

For several years, the Maoists had established hegemony in villages and other parties were barely allowed to enter, at least until 2006. In its pre-election reports, the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) and observer groups mentioned excesses by the Young Communist League, a CPN(M) wing, of beating up other candidates or not allowing them to move. At the same time, several Maoists were in the line of fire, with seven activists killed on the eve of the elections in Dang district. Proxy and multiple voting practised as conveniently by other major parties as well are also reported to have played a part in the elections.

In the Terai, the MJF had been at the forefront of the Madhesi movement of January 2007. While the Forum, as it is popularly called, suffered splits and made tactical blunders over the past year, it has been able to win the largest share of seats in the eastern Terai belt. This was the stronghold of the N.C. Other Madhesi parties too were in the fray here. But brand recognition, its association with the Madhesi cause, a strong backing by Yadavs and pockets of Tharu support helped the MJF.

Contrary to speculation that the Maoist base was destroyed because of the Madhesi movement, the CPN(M) did well also in the Terai. The party has, in particular, won the support of Tharus in the west, Rajbanshis in the east, the pahadis living in Terai, besides mobilising the Madhesi Dalits and the landless.

The immediate implication of the Maoist victory is that the balance of power in Kathmandu will alter dramatically. The former rebels will stake a claim to lead the government. And it is widely speculated that Baburam Bhattarai chief ideologue of the party will take over as the Prime Minister. Prachanda has projected himself as the President of the republic and may like to keep himself out of the government to manage intra-party challenges and coordination with other parties.

The Maoists have made a conscious effort to reach out to all sections of society after the victory. In a speech after winning his Kathmandu seat, Prachanda urged the entire political class, the bureaucracy and those in security forces to work together. He said the Maoists would work closely and positively with the international community, particularly India.

Amidst a drop in the stock exchange and speculation of capital flight, the Prachanda-Bhattarai duo met a large gathering of industrialists in a Kathmandu hotel. Our battle is not against capitalism. It is against feudalism. We believe in public-private partnership. Collectivisation, socialisation and nationalisation are not on our current agenda. We need massive job creation for which we need investment in hydropower, tourism and its optimum utilisation, said Bhattarai.

The former rebels clearly know they will need others at this juncture. The problem is that the N.C. and the UML, reeling under the shock of the rout, are acting difficult like bad losers, as an observer put it. The interim Constitution stipulates that the post-election government will be made after consultation with all the parties.

Prime Minister Koirala had earlier said that all the major parties must work together for the next 10 years. But after the results, the UML has walked out of the government. Madhav Kumar Nepal told Frontline, We have no right to be in government. The people have not given their verdict in favour of the UML.

There are sections within both parties that want to let the Maoists be in government alone so that they can get exposed. Said a top N.C. leader: They will anyway control the levers of power. We will just be used as a shield. The N.C. has said it will be in government for now, while efforts are on by Prachanda to convince the UML to join the new dispensation.

On the international front, the Indian establishment was in a tizzy when results came in. None of the arms of the Indian state the Ministry of External Affairs, the Research and Analysis Wing and the National Security Advisory Board were prepared for a Maoist victory.

While there was initial panic, the Ministry got into damage control mode soon. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee spoke to Prachanda and called the victory a positive development. In briefings in Delhi and Kathmandu, Indian diplomats said they were happy to work with whoever was in power in Nepal.

It is the United States that is in a complete fix now. The Maoists continue to be on the U.S. governments terrorist list. Sources say that the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu, especially after the new Ambassador Nancy Powell joined last year, has been open to the idea of engaging with the Maoists. But hardliners in the White House and the State Department were stern and insisted that the Maoists were terrorists.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who was in Nepal as an observer of the elections, urged the U.S. administration to lift the terrorist tag from the Maoists and told the BBC that it was embarrassing and frustrating to see his government refuse to deal with the Maoists.

The Maoists have their hands full. For one, the first sitting of the House has to abolish monarchy. The Maoist leaders have urged King Gyanendra to leave Narayanhiti palace, and said they had no objections to his living in Nepal as an ordinary citizen. There are some technical concerns about whether the first sitting will indeed be able to act on the issue, given that it will also include oath-taking, election of a chair, and the adoption of a code of procedures.

Royalists are making desperate arguments to buy time, saying that the implementation of the decision must wait for the promulgation of the Constitution, two years from now. But it is unlikely that their efforts will work anymore. The Maoists have clearly said that it is time for the king to go. Moreover, the electoral verdict is clearly against monarchy, with the decimation of pro-palace parties such as Surya Bahadur Thapas Rashtriya Janashakti Party, Pashupati Ranas Rashtriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) and Kamal Thapas RPP-Nepal.

The relationship between the Nepal Army, headed by the politically ambitious Rukmangad Katuwal, and the Maoists will be critical. The Army has said it is willing to obey the orders of the elected government. But it has, over the past two years, been defiant of civilian authority. Despite all parties agreeing that Maoist fighters will have to be integrated in the National Army as a component of the peace process, the Army has made clear its refusal to allow in politically indoctrinated fighters.

The Constituent Assembly also has to act like a legislature. The overlap of these two roles may complicate decision-making at times. The immediate governance challenges to the Maoists will be rising inflation, a soaring fuel bill, and a dismal law and order situation. Within the Constituent Assembly, there will be major debates, particularly on the nature and shape of federalism.

History has moved at a brisk pace in Nepal. From a royal takeover only three years ago to a peoples movement, end to an armed insurgency, peace process, ethnic unrest and now a Maoist victory, Nepal has been in a flux. The onus of redefining the Nepali identity and state structure now rests with the Constituent Assembly, with the Maoists in the lead.