Nepali Times

There are only so many ways you can keep saying the same thing every week. But it has to be said again that although all the blame seems to be heaped on the Baidya Maoist-led group of 33 smaller parties for obstructing the November elections, it is actually the UCPN (M) and the establishment Madhesi parties who are slyly working towards the same end.

The M&M are going back on the very agreements they were signatories to in the presidential ordinance that made way for the interim electoral administration. That agreement stipulated the number of seats and constituencies in the next CA elections, but the UCPN (M) and Madhesi parties are now having second thoughts. They are shifting the goalposts again on electoral constituencies and going back to a 601 seat CA and old proportional representation provisions.

Whatever spin the protagonists put to it, the ongoing talks between the four-party mechanism and the littler dissident parties look like a futile exercise because of the mutually exclusive list of demands from the 33. Some want the Khil Raj Regmi government to resign, some want just the High-Level Political Committee to be dissolved, others just want Regmi to abandon his Chief Justiceship, some want the entire four-party, 11-point agreement and the 25-point ordinance to be scrapped and be replaced by an all-party roundtable.

Still others want the electoral constituencies to be rearranged to reflect the results of the 2011 census, while some want the proportion of candidates nominated under proportional representation increased, or the deadline for voter registration extended. Everyone wants rules that will give them a numerical advantage in polls.

Even if the UCPN (M) and Madhesi parties are not actively colluding with the dissidents and egging them on to put up these pre-conditions, it is clear they benefit from the delaying tactics. The reason is that both have read the writing on the wall, seen the public opinion surveys, and are running scared that they will be trounced at the ballot box. It is natural for political parties at election time to be curious about whether conditions are favourable for them, but to refuse to go to the polls because they may not do well at the ballot box undermines democracy and their own credibility.

Even non-Maoists voted for the Maoists in 2008, either out of fear or because they thought giving former rebels the ballot would encourage them to give up the bullet. But having squandered their mandate during successive tenures in government, both the Maoists and Madhesis know that it is not going to be a cake walk this time. Besides, the Maoists have split, eroding their rural vote banks. Some of the discredited leaders within the NC and UML are equally nervous about facing voters, but they are secretly happy to let the dissident parties and the Maoist-Madhesi combine take the blame for being spoilers.

Which is why the Maoists and Madhesi parties are blowing hot and blowing cold, being wildly optimistic one day and wildly pessimistic the next, and giving contradictory statements to the media. Some have started saying “Let’s postpone elections till April.” Indeed, if some of the demands of the 33 and the Maoist-Madhesi alliance is to be accommodated, there is no way the Election Commission can conclude preparations in time. But there are dangers if polls are postponed till May 2014.

Firstly, there is the political minefield over who should succeed the Regmi government or whether it should continue. The UCPN (M) and especially Pushpa Kamal Dahal, will be blamed because he was the chief architect of making Regmi head an interim government to conduct polls. The four political parties and their leaders will suffer further damage to their credibility.

If the public’s apathy and lack of confidence in the parties and the electoral process decline even further, it could irreversibly undermine democracy, benefit the extremists of the left and right, and make a future election whenever it is held, meaningless.