The UCPN (Maoist) candidate Baburam Bhattarai has been elected the 35th prime minister of the country. Bhattarai secured 340 of 575 votes cast on Sunday’s prime ministerial election.
The another contestant for the post, NC’s parliamentary party leader Ram Chandra Poudel lost the votes with secured 235 votes. Poudel had lost 16 times in the previous prime ministerial election six months ago. The party had picked him as a majority candidate and Sher Bahadur Deuba was projected as a consensus candidate from his party.
The UCPN (Maoist) is the largest party with 240 seats, with 236 members in the CA at present. The party signed a four-point deal with Madhesi Alliance just before Sunday’s election, which secured the party 65 votes of the alliance for the win.
The third largest party UML voted for NC’s candidate Poudel saying that the Maoists’ time bound proposal on peace and constitution was not convincing enough to conclude the peace and constitution process.
57-year old Bhattarai was born in a lower middle-class peasant family in Belbas of Gorkha district. He won the CA election from Gorkha constituency No 2 with the highest number of votes and highest margin against the nearest rival (46,272 votes against 6,143; nearly 82% of the votes). Bhattarai is the party’s Vice Chairman and political ideologue.
The overwhelming votes he received on Sunday’s election however neither guarantees the stability of the government nor the completion of the ongoing peace and constitution writing process. Bhattarai will have to include other parties outside the government into the government.
TMLP leader Mahantha Thakur suggested Bhattarai to take NC and UML into confidence to conclude the peace process successfully. “They have taken a great risk and responsibility to conclude the process. I would like to ask the Maoist friends to make reviews of their proposal on peace and constitution writing and take the ongoing the peace process to a conclusion,” he said.
The Madhesi alliance support is not without condition. The Maoists will have to address Madhesi issues including the issue of state restructuring and governance.
“It was never my wish for majoritarian system but we entered into it technically,” Bhattarai said, “but there is no alternative to a national unity government. All previous government of majority failed and I don’t want to be in the list,”
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Congratulations to Mr.Bhattarai .
Let’s give a benefit of doubt just for a second because we all want peace,prosperity and the end of empty promises by Maoist Party.
Maoist time bound programe is as empty as any other promise given by them.We will have to all live another 50 years to see the signs of the peace process results and its worthiness .
The easyiest part,integration and rehabilation of PLA soldiers.
Integration and rehabilitation will be done very easily by Maoist leadership .Yes,it will require some time ,and month and half is enough to keep this promise in tact for very simple reason,that those are the promises given to PLA soldiers.One must pay for the job done and in this case it was done for Maoist Party and money is not a problem for Maoist party because of the sponsors behind the whole game,not because Nepali Government has sufficient amount,because it doesn’t .All those projects in complete ,frozen and all those pre-planned financial needs, is the reality of the state pocket,millions of Nepalis are denied and robbed,but PLA soldiers will get their pay,either instant or on going.
Let’s not forget how the time bound programme takes it’s culmination .There is no point in Maoist programme without vision ahead and the results they want to have at the end, process is just the sum of actions taken.
The second part of the time bound programme is ,peace process and constitution writing.
First of all it is a process and a process is about bringing about results and to bring about peace in real sense not just physical ending of killing and looting people, but it is a transformation of minds first of all to reach the peace which for most of the people on the planet happens only at the end of their lifes,as the evaluation of the worthiness of the process happens after the results are seen.Given the Nepali political situation in the country,it is gone take another 4 decades to just see the reason,why it can not be completed,as the process for peace is a process of time and actions taken to reach this goal.In case of Nepal the Constitution will determin the peace process and results and therefore for success and the end of peace process in Nepal ,everyone must have common goal and same ideaology to complete the peace process on Maoist terms.It is a life long ,on going process we go through in educating ourselves, never an ending concept.
In Nepal for peace to start ,written constitution could be a beginning of the peace process, but most certainly not the end of the peace process.It[ s a life long process and for it to be a success ,education ,law and order,are the basic processes for a society to progress.
Mr.Bhattarai has to remember basics which is Maslow’s hierachy of needs for each individual and therefore for the society as a whole.
It is the end result of the process in mind ,therefore the first question to me is ,what Maoist party wants to have as an end result.We must remember what is maoist ideaology about .
At the present I consider Maoist time bound programme only as a preparation and we all must be prepared to be subjected to maoist treatment as any process was announced to have an end result in Maoist time bound program.
What are the Maoist party goals for Nepali society,not just actions to be taken to lead to their political succeess and system as a whole.