We would like to express our solidarity with those who have been spending several hours of their productive time every day at Baluwatar. This has continued on New Year´s Eve also and it is definitely not an ideal way to welcome the New Year.[break]
Hope and despair are no doubt part of life. People in Nepal have been through a lot in recent decades despite the many efforts to bring in change. Having said this, one cannot deny that there have been many positive changes in the country since the end of the Maoist insurgency. It has been more than six years since the then CPN (Maoist) decided to join hands with the then Seven-Party Alliance to sign the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which not only stopped the killing of innocents but also raised the hopes of all citizens.
Photo: Chandra Shekar Karki
We believe that the signing of the CPA followed by the election of the Constituent Assembly (CA) in April 2008 made people feel at last that the age-old feudal society was on the verge of major upheaval.
However, the leaders of the country´s major political forces let down the general public, as they failed to deliver a new constitution that would have guaranteed a federal democratic republican system of governance and started providing equal opportunities to all, regardless of caste, ethnicity, gender, religion and region. The grievances of many ethnic groups and communities have come out quite strongly in recent years, which is natural given the uni-cultural society that we have been living in.
The grievances that have remained suppressed within these communities since long had to surface and they have finally done so. It is up to the leaders of the parties now to find a sensible way out of this uni-cultural setup that has left a majority of people on the sidelines.
We do feel that the dissolution of the CA was totally unwarranted. But the positive aspect is that it gives yet another opportunity to the sovereign people to decide their own future. As we believe that the parties are the only agents of change, we call upon the party leaders to rightly gauge the people´s sentiments and renew afresh the understanding they had reached while signing the 12-point understanding.
We reiterate that with the dissolution of the CA, the parties do not have the mandate to decide on contentious issues. It is now up to the people to decide. For this, the party leaders must overcome their lust for power and form a consensus government to provide the people some hope while ushering in the New Year.
We too are welcoming the New Year with a new look for this daily. Change is a natural phenomenon, and it should be for the better. Into the fourth year of its publication, Republica has established itself as one of the prominent dailies in the country, with a major impact on Nepali journalism.
Improvement in its content and providing much-needed information to our valued patrons have always been our goal and continue to be so. We vow to continue our endeavors to engage in quality journalism, which would not be possible without your patronage. We wish our valued readers and advertisers a very happy New Year.
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