A false start

After keeping it under wraps for five days Prime Minister and UML Chairman Jhala Nath Khanal and UCPN-M Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal have publicly owned up to their secretly done so called seven-point deal and have vowed to remain committed to it. We find the deal troubling and illegitimate for both procedural and content reasons. The deal was struck between Khanal and Dahal while keeping both their parties and the public in the dark.



Transparency is the hallmark of democracy and an open society and deals struck in the dark become automatically illegitimate. If the parties were honest in their intentions and were entering into the deal in the larger interests of society, why would they need to conceal it? Conversely, when party leaders feel it necessary to hide something, there is always something wrong with it.



Maoist Chairman Dahal at least seems to have consulted and taken his party into confidence and he never publicly denied the deal, though he hadn´t owned up to it either until today. But Prime Minister Khanal not only hid the deal from leaders of his party but also lied to them and to the public in denying having signed any such thing. That´s utter dishonesty. With this deal the new government has made a false start and the ramifications are beginning to show: The UML and Maoists are already fighting over the distribution of ministerial portfolios and accusing each other of not honoring their power-sharing spirit. And the KP Oli and Madhav Nepal camp in the UML has come out completely disowning the deal, something that will further complicate the internal dynamics within the UML and its relationship with the Maoists.



There are also at least two problems with the content of the deal. First, it says the two parties agree to share the post of prime minister on a rotational basis over a longer term. In less than four months the life of this parliament expires and along with that the government will lose its legitimacy. It will require a consensus among the major political parties to extend parliament’s term, something that will now become extremely difficult thanks to the deal. The NC and Madhesi parties will not be in favor of yet another extension of parliament just to let the Maoists and UML cling to power.



The most contentious issue in the seven-point deal is, however, the agreement reached between Khanal and Dahal on creating a separate security force for accommodating Maoist combatants. First, there is no mention in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of the creation of a fifth security force. Secondly, any proposal for the integration/rehabilitation of PLA combatants will have to originate from the Special Committee. And since such a proposal will have to be agreed unanimously by all the parties represented in the Committee there is no chance whatsoever of creating the fifth force, an idea that was rejected by the NC and UML in the past. It´s hard to understand why Messrs Khanal and Dahal got themselves into such a flawed deal.

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