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Enter Nepal’s Maoist establishment

The Nepali citizenry surprises itself and the world on occasion, with a show of people’s will that is unprecedented and path-breaking. The People’s Movement of April 2006 was one such epochal event, which led to the Constituent Assembly elections of last Thursday. Those polls in turn have brought a rebel force barely out of the jungle into the driver’s seat of national politics.

The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has achieved a massive win over its rivals, the Nepali Congress and the ‘mainstream-left’ Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), and is set to organise the government and define the Constituent Assembly process. While still a radical force, it has been cleansed and legitimised through the electoral exercise. The forecast of analysts who had predicted a graduated entry of the ‘Maobaadi’ through the elections of April 10 has been turned on its head, including this writer’s projection that the CPN (Maoist) would come in third after the other two parties.

The people of Nepal seem to have kept their own counsel, and in an election that saw more than 60 per cent participation of the 17.5 million-strong electorate in 21,000 polling centres, they pushed the Maoists far ahead of all other political forces. We have seen a demographic tsunami, and the face of the 601-member Constituent Assembly will be the most inclusive of any legislature in Nepal’s history. Besides the contribution of the Maoists, the electoral formula combining direct-candidate and proportional elections is set to deliver a dramatically expanded representation of marginalised communities from the country’s uniquely diverse population.

Several factors would seem to explain the victory of the former rebels, who went underground in 1996 to start their war against the state, 10 years later made a compact with the NC and the UML to defeat the autocratic King Gyanendra through the People’s Movement, and thereafter came above ground and joined the interim set-up of the last two years.

To begin with, the Maoist win is the result of a well-oiled campaign machinery worthy of a politico-military organisation. There was countrywide deployment of threat and intimidation during the run-up to the elections, which demoralised competing party activists and civil servants alike. On the day of the polls itself, voting was enthusiastic and widespread enough for national and international observers to declare the exercise a resounding success, though ‘proxy voting’ seems to have been a factor in various parts.

However, election-related malfeasance cannot explain the extent of the Maoist victory and would deny the populace the agency and rational choice it exercised last Thursday. A major reason for the win seems to be voters’ desire to keep the Maoists from returning to the ‘people’s war’ and suffering attendant miseries. The imperfect peace process, made so by the absence of the rule of law and state administration over the last two years, left the population beleaguered and worried of a return to that horrific period. Much of the electorate seems to have decided, en masse, to give the CPN (Maoist) the prize of government so that the dire threats of a ‘return to the jungle’ would not be implemented. To that extent, this was a vote under duress.

That said, the urban analyst is required to respond with sobriety to the Maoist victory, because this was also an indication of the scale of unrelenting deprivation from which the people sought release. The hold of the Maoists’ populist promise has been strong in a country whose workforce continues to migrate in massive numbers to India and overseas because of high levels of poverty. Against this backdrop, both the UML and the NC were seen as failed establishmentarian forces, while the Maoists projected themselves as true agents of change. The vote swept much of the political old guard entirely out of the picture.

With the flexibility available to a new entrant, the Maoists also filled their candidatures with members of the deprived communities, including the Dalits, the janajati ethnic category and women. They laid claim, with justification, to having introduced all the salient issues that had been placed before the electorate, including the demands for inclusion, federalism, secularism, and an overturning of economic relations to serve the underclass.

The expectation has been that the Constituent Assembly would deliver long-lost political stability, which would allow the revival of the economy and restart development. The populace has been watching the neighbouring economies grow at nearly 10 per cent, while Nepal’s own growth has been consistently below three per cent for the last decade. The question in many minds today is: will the untested Maoists be able to rise above their bombast and rhetoric to ensure political stability in order to trigger economic growth?

With all their failings, and despite populist suggestions to the contrary, the NC and the UML had in fact since 1990 developed values of responsible politics and parliamentary practice, and the expectation was that the elections would lead to a healthy discourse between these two parties, the Maoists and the new entrants from the Tarai/Madhes. The people now wait to see how the Maoist leadership takes the lead vis-À-vis the grave responsibilities of writing a new democratic constitution and running the state administration. By the understanding in the Interim Parliament, the key political forces are to work in collaboration to ensure a smooth and inclusive functioning of government and constitution-writing. That was when the NC and the UML believed that the Maoists would be the third force; now that the tables are turned, the latter would have to take the lead in ensuring consensual procedures.

Indeed, all eyes are on the Maoist top brass, which itself has been taken by surprise by the extent of the people’s verdict. Early signs will be read in how it responds to criticism and challenges from the opposition parties and by members of civil society who are not exactly fellow travellers. Across the country, the leadership will have to call off the hotheads of the Young Communist League, engaged in a campaign of harassment over the past year.

There are other challenges for a Maoist party confronted with the task of moving from belligerent radicalism to responsible leadership of state within a matter of weeks. Besides controlling the YCL, immediate gestures would include a public rejection of political violence by Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal (‘Prachanda’), and the dissolution of the parallel governance structures that have made a mockery of state administration. At a victory rally on Saturday evening, Mr. Dahal did not go that far but he did seek to reassure the national and international community of his party’s commitment to multiparty democracy and willingness to work with the other parties.

Nepali politics will never be the same again, and people everywhere wait to see how the Maoists comport themselves in the days ahead on issues beyond the all-important matter of personal security of citizens. To begin with, on the Nepali monarchy, if the Maoists do not have other plans and do work with the UML and the NC, the collective decision to establish a ‘Federal Republic of Nepal’ will be irreversible.

A consensual approach to the writing of the constitution as well as a commitment to pluralism, freedom of press and assembly, and a willingness to stand by the principles of accountability and transitional justice, will reassure the citizenry and the international community alike. The Maoists must also assure all on a sober and responsible approach to the national security forces (the Nepal Army, the Armed Police and the Nepal Police) even as they seek integration of the former fighters in the cantonments. Such reassurance is also important to control capital flight, as well as to attract foreign direct investment from investors who have been waiting for post-election stability. A proximate danger for an untried force such as the CPN (Maoist) is crony capitalism, whose short-term benefits to the party may devastate economic growth long into the future.

Here is a country trying to push through a return to peacetime, a return to democracy, and a state restructuring exercise all at the same time. Society is confronting demands for inclusion from myriad quarters in order to right historical wrongs. How will the Maoists tackle these challenges, now that they are indubitably a part of the state establishment? In particular, will they have the maturity to deal with societal forces such as the antagonistic Madhesi Janadhikar Forum of Upendra Yadav, whose victory in the plains mirrors that of the Maoists elsewhere? The ability of the CPN (Maoist) to present a sober face will also obviate a radical-right coming-together, which would plunge society into a steep spiral of violence and uncertainty.

A party which developed using political violence as an anti-state rebel force needs now to immediately convert into an organisation that can keep its cadre in check, reassure the international community and neighbours, and project a face of responsibility to the donor and business communities. Most importantly, it must rise to the expectations of the people and guarantee the personal security and freedom of citizens. Beyond the jubilation of the moment, the challenges before Pushpa Kamal Dahal and his comrades are enormous. But Nepal has surprised the world before this, and perhaps the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) will surprise us all with its power of transformation.

(Kanak Mani Dixit is editor of Himal Southasian magazine and a civil rights activist based in Kathmandu.)

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