Dash donation drive
Jana Aastha, 25 September
RUKUM -- While other parties are trying to raise campaign funds by mobilising cadre, the CPN-M is going around sending letters to individuals and institutions to stop elections from happening. Baidya’s cadre have gone office-to-office on a list of 500 individuals, asking civil servants to fork out a minimum of Rs 20,000. “The CDO of Rukum knows what is going on, but he hasn’t reacted,” one staff told Jana Aastha.
Observer Work permits
Annapurna Post, 26 September
The Labour Department has written to the Foreign Ministry and the Home Ministry to require international election observers to get work permits, but the Election Commission is against the proposal. The EC has argued that it would be against international norms since observers are volunteers. The Labour Department cited the case of the Carter Centre which came in 2008 and has maintained an office here ever since, but it said academics and diplomats would not need permits. The EU is sending 100 observers, Carter Centre will have 85, and the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) will have 54 observers. The EC has also invited election commissioners from all South Asian countries and officials from Australia, Japan, and South Korea. Former Election Commissioner Surya Prasad Shrestha termed the work permit idea “daft”.
Progressive nationalism
Baburam Bhattarai’s Facebook page, 19 September
We went to Sindhuli early yesterday and came back late today, so I could only read today’s newspapers after arriving in Kathmandu. Two stories disturbed me. One: armed Indian police raids a house in Bardiya. Two: German ambassador instructs local people on whom to vote and whom not to vote for in the upcoming elections. Yesterday, I talked with local people in Sindhuli about how we drove back the English forces in the 18th century. Today, I am a mute spectator when such blatant transgressions are being made on Nepal’s sovereignty.
Nepali rulers took up a policy of surrender after the Treaty of Sugauli in 1816, which is why we are weak and poor and have to suffer such humiliations today. I admit to also being carried away at times. My PhD thesis, the early protests, and the 40-point demand were all manifestations of this. But in light of all the worldwide and regional economic, political, and social changes and the recent revolutionary transformation within our own country, I now understand we cannot win this external struggle for nationalism without unity at home, without providing our citizens with rights or without making our country prosperous.
We must free ourselves from the yoke of the Sugauli Treaty with a new strategy befitting the 21st century. That is what I mean by progressive nationalism. Come, let us make this country strong, prosperous, and united so we may together protect its independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.
One Maoist party enough
Kantipur, 26 September
KATHMANDU -- Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal has said the country doesn’t need two Maoist parties and called for Mohan Baidya’s CPN-M to rejoin the main party. “The need of the hour is reunification of our two parties and I ask Baidyaji to join us and fight the election together,” he told a ceremony to mark the defection of three Madhesi CPN-M leaders into the UCPN (M).
Extortionist to be probed
Kathmandu Today website, 26 September
Mohan Baidya of the CPN-M has started an investigation to figure out which three cadre from his party took a letter to Lajimpat addressed to UCPN (M) Chairman Dahal. The letter demands support for the party’s campaign to sabotage elections. It says: ‘We hope that your organisation will extend monetary, physical and moral support for our struggle to boycott the elections.’