But what became increasingly evident leading up to May 27, the extended deadline for the CA, was that Nepali politics, even at that crucial juncture, was largely being driven by power and electoral calculations. In a democracy, there is nothing wrong in political parties competing for space in the national polity—in fact, that is exactly how it should be. But the political parties seemed to have forgotten in the process that these were no ordinary times, and CA was no ordinary legislature. This was the reason all the important political documents since the 2006 Comprehensive Peace Accord have emphasized the need for national consensus until the country has a permanent constitution, the idea being that in the delicate phase of transition, it was important for all progressive forces to work together in order to consolidate the achievements of Jana Andolan II.
But it wasn’t to be. There were promising signs at the start of the year when the Baburam Bhattarai government made big strides towards the conclusion of the peace process. It looked like the path was finally being cleared for the settlement of the contentious constitutional issues like government form and state restructuring. In our view, the thing that contributed the most to the CA’s failure was the inability (or call it unwillingness) of major party leaders to take the broader constituencies into confidence on important issues. This small coterie, in fact, made a mockery of the sovereign constitution making body by trying to hammer out all important issues outside the CA framework. For instance, the May 15 agreement between the four major forces on a multi-identity 11-state model soon sank as it had been prepared without broader consultations with the Madhesi and janajati lawmakers.
How little the top leaders valued the CA platform was evident from their routine absence from the meetings of CA committees, which they evidently believed was beneath their dignity to attend. The failure to set prior goalposts on the constitution, the lack of trust between the traditional parties in NC and CPN-UML on the one hand, and the new forces in UCPN (Maoist) and Madhesi parties on the other, as well as continued suspicions about the democratic credentials of the Maoists, all contributed to the CA’s eventual failure.
There were failures on other fronts too. No headway could be made in combating pervasive impunity and corruption in the last 12 months; in fact, by most indicators, both got worse, despite some successful high-prolife prosecution of corrupt officials. The prolonged transition continued to wreak havoc in the law and order situation. And despite the enormous legislative achievements in gender equality since the 2006 changes, the country continued to be a dangerous place for women, with incidents of rape and spouse burning a routine affair in most parts of the country, right through the year. Pushpa Basnet’s winning of the 2012 CNN Hero award and Govinda KC’s successful initiative against nepotism were among a very few positive developments in this miserable year for Nepal.
Thankfully, it is coming to an end. The important question is: Has our political class learned anything from its colossal failures in 2012? We certainly hope so, for their own continued relevance if nothing else. If not, in 2013 the country could get dangerously close to another long and painful bout of authoritarianism, in one guise or the other.
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