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Simpani |
Website of Ajaya Bhadra Khanal |
Home News Looking back from Madison As the struggle between Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and the Communist Party of Nepal (UML) pushes Nepali politics, once more, into uncertain times, one cannot but look at the last ten years of Nepali democracy. The conflict between UML and Nepali Congress leader Girija Prasad Koirala has been the highlight of Nepali democracy instituted through revolution 10 years ago. I still remember reporting the first term of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala in the early 90s. It was marked by an intense struggle between a UML enjoying a gripping increase in popularity and an headstrong prime minister intent to prove something. The days included demonstrations over scapegoat issues. The death of Madan Bhandari and the Anil Commission Report, though serious emotional issues, were never sincerely used. Hindsight, even more strongly, shows that they were just pretexts used to hide the real issue�an UML intent on gaining stranglehold over Nepali politics. Now the issues remain as simple but not the motive. The forces within UML have become diverse and so have the unseen power centers and vested interests trying to work out something through political parties. The split of the UML may be a result of this process, and many have guessed as much, but one can never adequately untangle the winding threads of political interests. The tension within the Nepali Congress, in one way or another, also reach out to vested interests beyond the national boundaries. It is more than ten years, and political parties have not yet found a way out of the struggle, nor a democratic decision making process that can contain serious differences. National elections, as far as the two last ones are concerned, were never a solution to Nepal's problems. The solution, on the other hand, lies in transparency and democratic practice within political parties. As long as intra-party democracy does not thrive in the Nepali Congress, political problems will ever more strongly be tangled up with vested interests |
