Publication Date : 18-02-2013
Ending nine months of political uncertainty, Nepal’s parties have inched closer to forming an election government headed by incumbent Chief Justice Khil Raj Regmi. The new administration will be assigned the task of holding fresh elections to a new Constituent Assembly (CA) that will resume the unfinished task of constitution-making. But there is an equally, if not more, important responsibility on the shoulders of the parties. If the idea is to strengthen the people of Nepal and enable them to taste the fruits of democracy, there is one thing that the parties must consider with great sense of urgency - local bodies have been allowed to flounder for too long.
Presented as pillars of democracy and empowerment, thousands of local bodies, including Village Development Committees (VDCs), municipalities and District Development Committees (DDCs), have been running ad hoc for the last decade-and-a-half. It has now been 16 years since the last elections for local bodies were held. Youths who were 18 years of age in 1997 are now 34 and have yet to see a single election in their locality. They have been deprived of their constitutional right to be governed by their elected representatives.
Since 1997, local bodies have been randomly administered - sometimes through nominated heads, other times through bureaucrats and, of late, through a political nexus in the name of all-party committees. These exercises have exposed the hazards of throwing away the concept of elected self-governance. Widespread reports of irregularities, the failure to deliver appropriate services and outright corruption have shown that self-governance is synonymous with good governance. It has also proved that democracy, if exercised only at the central level, will be unable to deliver accountability and prosperity.
In the absence of elected local governance, many regions in the country witnessed spurts of violence during the Maoist conflict. However, even after the cessation of the armed conflict, many of these regions did not feel the presence of the government. The development process turned into a farce as unaccountable members of political committees perfected the art of cornering resources in an opaque manner. These ominous developments have also meant that donors have largely refrained from pouring their resources into local bodies. The same local bodies that were models for self-governance in the 1990s for the entire South Asian region have become muddled today.
The absence of local elections has affected many things, including the erosion of public faith in democracy; the derailment of need-based and bottom-up development practices; the evolution of a politico-bureaucratic nexus; a disappearing sense of accountability; poor service delivery; corruption at the local level; worsening condition of disadvantaged communities; lack of public audit; the inability to spend development budgets; a widening distance between service seekers and service providers and the cessation of local political mobilisation. When there were local elected bodies in Nepal, over 200,000 people were elected across the country. This large number of people was a pool of political resources that acted as foundations for democratic and political institutionalisation. Sadly, they are all gone now.
The lack of locally elected bodies is not a small problem. Amid the national discourse on constitution-making, this agenda was overshadowed in the past. This cannot continue any longer. Political parties must realise that they can no longer put off local elections. If they do so, they will be doing it at their own peril. The longer local elections are put off, the worse will be the impact on democratic political development that is rooted in a community. It is, therefore, important that the parties decide to hold local elections alongside CA polls. It will save a lot of time, money and energy for everyone.
Some sections might protest that since there is an urgent need to hold CA polls in Nepal by May/June, the Election Commission (EC) must not be overburdened with local elections too. But is that the right logic? We have already lost many precious years. If there is a little bit of motivation, this can be easily accomplished. The EC is fully capable of holding both polls simultaneously. In fact, the Commission may find it easier to do both in one go rather than having to go through the whole process again. Beside, elected local bodies will be force multipliers for the elected CA and can act as bulwarks against any attempt to subvert or undermine democracy.
However, the holding of local elections also calls for active lobbying on the part of donors who have invested heavily in local development. Donors like Dfid, the Swiss government, USAID, Danida, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, who have gradually reduced their stake in local governance in recent years, should realise the folly of doing so. Without local democracy and empowerment, the principles of inclusion, participatory democracy and the championing of the rights of the disadvantaged and the underprivileged will be hollow.
There is also a concern that since Nepal will be adopting a federal structure, it will be futile to hold local polls at this time since they may all be dismantled to suit the new federal regime. This is an understandable concern. But we must remember that even in the best of times, it will be more than a year or two before we have a new constitution with a federal setup. And even then, it will take another few years to ready all legal regimes for full enforcement and division of the new structures. Given this, we might have ample time to go for local polls, but do we have the intention?
Pradhan is Executive Director of the Nepal Law Society
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