The Syndicate in Crisis

(Courtesy: Dr. Prakash Chandra Lohani - Co-Chairman of the Rastriya Janasakti Party)

The seven party syndicate is facing a crisis. Koirala as usual is at the receiving end with the Maoists tightening the screw. For the Maoists election to the constituent assembly is not a priority. What they are interested is in capturing power and once this is achieved other formalities like election to the constituent assembly can then be taken care of.

A political syndicate

A political syndicate can function successfully if the members of the syndicate agree on the function that is to be maximized. It has its counterpart in economics in the form of a cartel where the objective is to maximize income for its members given the demand function of the product. The essential point is that for an economic cartel or a political syndicate stability requires that all members agree on the objective that is to be maximized. In a political syndicate if the objective is to consolidate and share power individual members must feel that their prospect of remaining in power with the membership in the syndicate is greater than acting alone. On the other hand, if members in the syndicate have divergent political objectives the arrangement will continue to lurch from one crisis to another before its collapse.

The political syndicate known popularly as the Seven Party Alliance (SPA) is now in crisis because its members have divergent objectives even though they claim their unity of purpose before the people. When they joined hands in the form of a 12 point agreement, the tactical objective was clear: it was to wage a joint struggle against the direct rule of the king which was a clear violation of the then constitution. Once this effort succeeded the unifying theme of the coalition had ended. This was quite obvious when the Maoists opposed the move by Koirala-Nepal combine to restore the parliament. They wanted the movement to continue towards a revolutionary climax so that they could intervene with their military wing to capture power.

However, they had to control their ambition because it was not possible to continue the movement on their own without the support of the non-Maoist forces. So they reluctantly agreed to the new dispensation and ultimately decided to use it to come to power through the election to the constituent assembly. The Maoists were quite confident that in the forthcoming election they will be able to ride the victory wave while leaving other parties far behind and draft a constitution that reflects their vision of the "people's republic" as opposed to a parliamentary system.

The hypocrisy

Koirala's government could not hold the election in time even though the prime minister was telling a foreign dignitary one day before the postponement of the election that the country was going to the polls as planned. That was the level of honesty on the part of the political leadership. A new date was announced with the concurrence of the Maoists. The people were once again told that the country would finally get the opportunity to elect their representatives who would draft a constitution on behalf of the people.

However, in the mean time, the Maoist charm offensive was taking a nose dive. The YCL had emerged as a new wing of the Maoists whom the prime minister in one of his rare moment of candor had labeled as "the young criminal league". Accusations against one another on the part of the top leadership of the SPA were now becoming common. The Maoists were gradually becoming aware of the fact that in a reasonably free and fair election they would have little chance of emerging as a major political force in the country irrespective of how many guns their workers may have in the military cantonment now being supervised by the United Nations.

Guns may have been useful in intimidating people in the countryside but in a reasonably free election the people were determined to prove otherwise. Naturally, this was unacceptable to the Maoists and so they have come out with new demands to make sure that the election is postponed again.

In the meantime Koirala's government for the last seventeen months, which included the Maoists in major portfolios for over five months, has proved to be a model of non-governance and paralysis. The people expected security of life and property and efforts on the part of government to improve the delivery of services as a form of "peace dividend" now that open battle with the Maoists was formally over.

Both the Maoists and the government have remained totally insensitive to these aspirations. As recently as three days ago a group of doctors were abducted by the YCL of the Maoists and tortured for over fourteen hours before being released. The victims have been begging for justice and asking the perpetrators of this crime to be apprehended. The government however is so helpless that it does not dare to arrest even one person involved in the crime. Instances like this are numerous and they create a sense of terror and lawlessness in the country.

There is a lot of talk about the new spirit of democracy and focus on the people. But the only theme that has found appreciation in the government is the wholesale acceptance of the spoils system, that has given a de facto license to the SPA to distribute government resources and positions to near and dear ones at the cost of the nation. There is hardly any institution that is not a victim of the spoils system. For the ruling syndicate hypocrisy is a normal political behavior with the hope that the rot within will not be noticed by the people.

Syndicate and adventurism

As it stands now, the seven party syndicate has become a quarrelsome group of political parties that can agree on sharing the spoils of power but totally incapable of deciding on a road map for the future. For the Maoists with faith in their guns rather than the votes of the people the new maxim now is not election to the constituent assembly but the demoralization and delegitimization of the Koirala government so that they can establish themselves as the preeminent force controlling all the levers of governance if and when the elections are held in the future. This is their road map to a "people's republic" which they claim is going to be radically different from the norms and values of a democratic parliamentary system.

For the non-Maoist factions in the syndicate, at least in theory, the formal commitment is to a liberal-social democracy based on multiparty politics, rule of law, freedom of the press and the institutional mechanism of checks and balances provides the basis for a vision of the future. Commitment to the values inherent in this paradigm, however, has been consistently ignored. The interim constitution itself is a living example of this phenomenon.

Romantic adventurism is often a political bug that is a problem with all those who claim their legitimacy to insurrection and violence. The Maoists need to realize that capturing state power as in Eastern Europe in the mid 20th century is not a viable proposition in the global politics. Many of the issues that they have raised are valid and have gone a long way in sensitizing the Nepali people to the problems of discrimination and injustice. But to move to a new society where all Nepalis have adequate political and economic space is not possible through a techno-bureaucratic authoritarian political paradigm that sees the state simply as an extension of the party. Their political behavior so far is indicative of a mindset that projects freedom as the privilege of supporting the Maoists since they represent the "revolutionary masses". Perhaps, this would have been possible if human beings were nothing more than biological machines who would always accept the verdict of the "Ministry of Truth". But human beings do have a sense of judgment and they know that authoritarianism whether it is royal or Maoists deserve to be rejected.

In the coming days the Maoists will have to decide whether or not they are willing to seek the mandate of the people. Threatening Koirala with dire consequences while offering sweeteners to the UML with a future premiership is not going to advance the peace process. Playing one party against the other is an old Maoist tactic that all are now aware of. In fact Maoist strategy so far indicates a confused mindset that is vacillating between revolutionary rhetoric and the reality of facing an electorate that is willing to express its mind through the medium of the ballot. The tactics of delay and playing one party against the other is going to be costly both for them and the nation.

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