SUJATA KOIRALA SAYS NO BUDGET WITHOUT CONSENSUS Kathmandu, 10 Nov : Nepali Congress (NC) central committee member Sujata Koirala has said that the NC would not accept the new budget if the government unveiled it sans Consensus, RSS reports from Biratnagar. Talking to media persons at Biratnagar Airport on Saturday, Koirala said the budget to be brought by the present government would not be free from criticisms. Saying that the President was also stressing the need for a full size budget based on consensus, Koirala warned that serious accident would occur if the budget was brought unilaterally. On a separate context, she said that elections to the constituent assembly and drafting a new constitution were unlikely if the present deadlock continues for long. Nnnn OPINION CONSENSUS WITHOUT CONCORD Kathmandu, 10 Nov.: Cutting through the political cacophony over the Dasain holidays and their aftermath, it seems consensus has retained its supremacy in the national conversation, Maila Baje writes in Nepali Netbook. Yet the sound that emerges is not a sonorous one. President Ram Baran Yadav, who has for the umpteenth time warned how he would not remain a mute spectator to the political torpor, nevertheless wants a collective recommendation from the parties on how to proceed. UCPN-Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal, whose flip-flops Maila Baje believes have ceased to be a serious factor in any solution, now wants the parties to name a consensus candidate for the premiership. The incumbent, Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, while not averse to making way for a suitable successor, insists he could work economic miracles if he got another 10 uninterrupted years on the job. Maoist vice-chairman Narayan Kaji Shrestha, enjoying his own bewildering moment in the sun, proclaims that elections would be held in April-May next year. Never mind that the parties cannot agree on whether the voting would be for the Constituent Assembly or for a new parliament. The rival Maoist faction has named Ram Bahadur Thapa Badal as its candidate for premier. But the ‘hard-line’ faction is still caught between the imperatives of capturing the state and competing in open politics. Such talk is passé to CPN-UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal. He thinks the Maoists have already captured the state. The real challenge, according to him, is to pry open the ex-rebels’ fists to the extent possible. His party colleague K.P. Oli, for now, at least, is too sick to make any splash. UML chairman Jhal Nath Khanal seems to have become the least relevant of the trio following the ethno-regional fissures within the party. For once, Sushil Koirala of the Nepali Congress has taken a firm stand. But his decision to go for fresh parliamentary elections is being challenged every moment from every possible corner. Sensing that Sher Bahadur Deuba and Ram Chandra Poudel lack the ability to amount to much on their own, Sujata Koirala has staked her claim to the premiership. (The other Koiralas, while quiet on the surface, must be preparing to checkmate her.) The Madhes-based parties, locked in their own internecine battles, have generously ceded the initiative to the big parties. However, they are primarily aiming to hold on to what they have got. All this has emboldened Surya Bahadur Thapa of the Rastriya Janashakti Party to step up to the plate. Unfortunately, time – in all its manifestations – is not on his side. Amid this muddle, Finance Minister Barsa Man Pun thinks he has figured things out. If the president tries to make even the slightest iniquitous move, the Bhattarai ally maintains, the country will either revert to the rule of King Gyanendra or become involved in civil war. Now, does Pun think most Nepalis consider the alternatives politically or morally equivalent? nnnn DOOMED TO BE DEFENSIVE Kathmandu, 10 Nov.: A pall of gloom reigns over the Maoists for several months ever since the erstwhile insurgents split into two parties after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly that functioned so hopelessly even after unilaterally doubling its tenure and yet without being able to formulate a new Constitution. This is in sharp contrast to the heady years when the undivided Maoists, fresh from their “People’s Liberation Army” days, emerged as the largest group in the CA and the first government was headed by their supremo Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Trikal Vastavik writes ub People’s Review The 2008 election results gave the Maoists more seats than the combined seats of the Nepali Congress and the CPN (UML) which previously used to be the two largest political parties. Despite the brave face they try to present, the helplessness they harbour in public betrays the extent of their despair. Their utter miscalculation and rank poor judgment in joining hands with the Maoist insurgents in November 2005 have begun to bear their poisonous fruit. But the Maoist split has given the NC and UML a thin ray of hope that their poll prospects might enhance by default, that is not necessarily because of any effective plans and policies of their own but on account of the dirty linen the split Maoists wash in public. In addition, Prime Minister Baburam has lost all credibility. The animosity level between the two groups, led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Mohan Baidya, has reached a point of no return. Although politics is described as the art of the possible, the rift created by the split is so deep and wide that insiders say the bitter feelings will have long-term consequences. Baidya group’s top leaders, vehemently against Dahal and Bhattarai, often make strident remarks on the latter two in private and in public. The morale of the Baidya group (CPN-M) is comparatively higher considering that the strong criticism its leaders make are not matched by appropriate retaliation by the Dahal group. Consequently, the rank and file in the Dahal group has developed a sense of defeat. In the districts, this has created widespread impression on the people that Dahal and company are on the wrong. The urban elite outside the Maoist fold thinks that the group on the defensive posture will have reasons more to lose than the Vaidya team unless the Dahal-led Maoists comes up with a counter-strategy to respond effectively against the rival attacks. Power and money are the two pillars of the ex-rebels who promised so much and delivered nothing of substance. Instead, discord and disharmony are the constant company for the citizens of “new Nepal”. The general public is disgusted by the Maoists’ in-fighting that makes no pretences of being preoccupied in serving the people. It was the power game and question of who amasses more money that brought the Dahal and Baidya faction to eventually break into two parties last summer. The Baidya group’s big talk on nationalism and sellout by the Bhattarai government would have spelled positive meaning if only its members in the undivided party prior to the CA dissolution had come out openly on the “wrong track” pursued. For example, BIPPA, which they now condemn in such high pitch, was signed when they were not split and they did not come out in the open to chasten Bhattarai. They also talk of Prachanda having amassed “crores and crores of rupees” and now and then hint at the missing money obtained from the state coffers for 3000 PLA members that never were in the cantonments supposed to be suprvised by the now discredited United Nations Mission in Nepal. Baidya and his colleagues are silent over the issue these days, probably because of an agreement with Dahal to share the several billions of rupees paid out by the government for the ex-rebels that never were. Interestingly, even the CIAA has not dared to investigate the scandal. Bhattarai began with a big bang last year when he loftily declared that he was not interested in having his photo hung at the Singha Durbar, meaning that his purpose was to serve the people. He time and again pledged to form a consensus government, which was also a pledge made by his immediate predecessor Jhala Nath Khanal. Like Khanal, Bhattarai miserably failed to form a consensus government even after ruling for a longer period than did the UML president. The years since 2004 have been witness to the big fall the Maoists have suffered. If Dahal and Baidya groups continue to function as two entities, theirs will be a war of attrition. This author is in the know of the fact that a number of foreign INGOs, functioning as their fronts, are worried about the bleak prospects of either of the two groups emerging as the largest parties. A number of European INGOs, involved in religious conversion, are asking local NGOs they fund heavily to goad their political leaders and mentors in both the Maoist camps to either regroup into a single party or make massive seat adjustments to ensure that neither undercuts the votes of the other. While Khanal obliged to the moral pressure put on him by his own party to step down, Bhattarai has shown his capacity to gobble down all the finer points of sense and sensibility as well as self-pride and public credibility. The prime minister has for six months battled in vain to salvage his reputation. His own advisers and others who feed themselves from his hands shy away from supporting his claims and public pronouncements. Some of his advisors look very uncomfortable when they face criticisms against their leader and yet hesitate to defend him. The NC-UML lamentations that the Maoists have waylaid them and the rest of the Nepali people are manifestations of their existing state of mind. But they still are yet to be honest with themselves and the public. They refuse to admit that the root of the current problems in the country was the November 2005 Delhi pact they signed with the Maoists. The two parties suffered a big setback in the 2008 polls as against their hopes of reducing the “much over-rated Maoists” to less than 50 seats. Today, they are hoping that the Maoist split will benefit them but they have not developed any proactive programs to win the hearts and minds of the much disenchanted Nepali people. The NC and UML should honestly assess where they have gone wrong and confess it to the public if they are to salvage their lost credibility. Even if they united, the Maoists are bound to fare below what they achieved four and a half years ago. If they contest the elections as separate entities, they will suffer a worse fate than what had been predicted for them by the NC and UML the last time. As for us average Nepalis, our suffering will enhance if we fail to punish the politically perfidious and incompetent. (The writer can be reached at: trikalvastavik@yahoo.com) nnnn