#425 14 - 20 November 2008 16 pages Rs 30 OUTSIDE LOOKING IN: Rohit Weekly Internet Poll # 425 Kushait from Janakpur looks in at the Q. How will the Obama victory affect gate of President Yadavís residence Nepal and the region? at Dhapashi on Saturday while the Total votes: 4,165 president was meeting journalists. Kushait wanted the president to help him with a land dispute. Weekly Internet Poll # 426. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com Q. How would you assess the government’s first 100 days? Anybody home?DEEPENDRA BAJRACHARYA As the honeymoon period ends, uncertainty looms he Maoist-led government problems, Nepalis still expect the Nepali Times that there is strong committee; and an agreement on T has been in office for three Maoists can bring change. criticism from within of Maoist the terms of reference. months, and some of the However, the biggest challenge ministers, and the hardliners Meanwhile, Prime Minister ex-guerrillas in government to the party leadership is now look like they are going to be Pushpa Kamal Dahal met senior admit that waging war was easier. from within. The Maoists are dominating the conference next Indian leaders on Wednesday in The Maoists inherited a holding intense backroom week. New Delhi and briefed them on battered economy, a fuel crisis, a consultations before a conference The Maoists are also facing the state of the peace process. The crippling electricity shortage and of nationwide cadre opens on 20 pressure from the NC, which has Indians are understood to have a standstill in development and November. stepped up its rhetoric. The urged him strongly to work with governance. Although their “This is a very crucial NC’s Arjun Narsingh KC said: the other parties. ‘people’s war’ was largely meeting,” says Sarala Regmi of “It’s been three months and the Indian Foreign Minister responsible for some of these the Maoist Tharuhat Provincial Maoists still haven’t fulfilled Pranab Mukherjee is due here Council. “The CA is just a any of their promises.” next week and is expected to urge transitional compromise; we will He said the NC would not the NC not to play oppositional not give up until all oppressed join a reconstituted committee politics at this time because it people are liberated.” on integration unless three could undermine the peace Party sources told conditions were met: the process and delay constitution- defining of a ‘national party’; a drafting. balance of power in the Dewan Rai 2 EDITORIAL 14 - 20 NOVEMBER 2008 #425 Published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Editor: Kunda Dixit CEO: Ashutosh Tiwari Design: Kiran Maharjan Marketing Manager: Sambhu Guragain Asst Manager: Subhash Kumar Subscriptions: 5542535/5542525 Hatiban, Godavari Road, Lalitpur Inside the UML GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu 5250333/845 [email protected] Fax: 5251013 www.nepalitimes.com Printed at Jagadamba Press 5250017-19 The party suffers an existential crisis DAYLIGHT ROBBERY he core problem in Nepali to blame. This narrative lauds the ideological battle and personal T politics today is intra- party’s ‘balanced’ policy during rivalry is blurred. Oli and party differences. There is a the peace process, where it Gautam may represent the two Nepalís revolution was supposed to lead us towards a New Nepal. deepening rift between the adopted a policy of critical extremes, but they have come A new set of elected leaders was supposed to bring us a new Maoist dogmatists and engagement with Maoists. closer recently. Oli supported vision and infuse citizens with hope and a sense of national purpose. pragmatists. The NC’s right wing With this line, and a strong Gautam to head the UML team in Nepalis havenít yet given up hope. They want to give the tendencies are re-emerging, organisational base, the party government, while Khanal was government they elected a chance to prove itselfóboth in thought it would be rewarded by rooting for Amrit Bohara. Oli now improving their daily lives and also by charting a new future for the electorate. Post-April, there expects Gautam to reciprocate the this country. PLAIN SPEAKING was disarray. Excuses were support during the convention, Any country that has suffered war suffers a hangover of Prashant Jha found, Maoist intimidation was when Khanal’s leadership will be violence. But there are other byproducts of insurgency: held responsible and the questioned. The result of that criminality, bribery, extortion and breakdown in law and order. drowning out centrist voices. It is leadership changed. Many in the power struggle will determine the Most transition states go through this phase: the former Soviet a wonder that the MJF is a party UML still feel their line was UML’s approach to the Maoists, bloc was virtually ruled by the mafia for a decade after 1990. at all, given the hatred among the correct but the tainted leadership and thus the duration of this In Nepal, a revolution that was fought at great human cost has top leaders. was being punished for government. ironically habituated people to kidnappings and corruption. Even if the lives of Nepalis donít improve, we need to have a perception But the most interesting compromises during the 1990- Whether the UML can revive that things are on the mend: that delivery of services is happening, ideological and leadership 2005 period. itself will depend on the that jobs are being created, that wealth is being spread. The struggle is within the UML. The Now voices arguing for greater ideological position it adopts, its present culture of impunity, the surge in crime and corruption do UML is thriving, despite being proximity to the Maoists have effectiveness in government, the not give us that perception. rejected by the people, because asserted themselves. Bamdeb way the NC and Maoists evolve, There is daylight robbery going on in Nepalís petroleum the NC and Maoists are fighting. Gautam is the most active the nature of polarisation in the distribution network resulting in massive adulteration. The guilty The party is suffering from a proponent of this line. Most of next few years, and whether it are never punished. Local goondas extort 20 per cent or more from severe existential crisis, and can’t his cadre from the ML days went can retain its grip on the lower hospitals being built by charities in remote areas. Youth groups figure out where it has gone on to join the Maoists and his levels of the bureaucracy. are on the prowl, threatening and extorting. wrong. stated aim is to merge the UML The UML has to confront At this rate, it wonít take long for the euphoria that followed the Any UML leader begins his and Maoists. Jhalanath Khanal other challenges. It has dismally elections to evaporate. Among the public there is apathy about corruption, bordering on fatalism. It is seen as a given, it is assessment of the Maoists by may not go that far but believes failed to deal with the Tarai’s accepted and its cost is factored into all transactions. claiming that the rebels had to in ‘broader left unity’. identity politics. The party Yet we know that there is a direct correlation between give up their ‘ultra-left But those demanding greater structure is non-inclusive. Its corruption and lives lost because hospitals arenít built, or toxic adventurism’ and accept the distance from the Maoists have leaders make prejudiced fumes from adulterated fuels that poison us. Madan Bhandari line. According also gained strength. The statements. It has lost its base It is argued that corruption lubricates the bureaucracy, allows to this version, the ‘people’s war’ conservative K P Oli school has among Madhesi intermediate the middle class to get things done and spreads cash. But was wrong. The Maoists could been skeptical of the peace castes and Dalits, and faces the numerous studies have shown that corruption hurts the poorest the rise because of the mess created process and has viscerally danger of being reduced to an most. Some say it is poverty that feeds corruption, but actually it by the NC, army and then the opposed the Maoists. He draws exclusively pahadi party. is greed. king. The UML had little role his support from party workers It also needs to reassess its It is retail street-level corruption that is most visible to us, but through the 90s and was thus not who have often been thrashed by relationship with NGOs run by grand-scale corruption at the highest levels of government is more hidden the Maoists and want to maintain party sympathisers. These have and more destructive, deepening a distinct identity. been the UML’s proxy patronage inequality and deterring investment. If the UML has got the well dispensation networks. But While we wait for this government deserved image of a flip-flop getting coopted into funding to get its act together as its party, it is because of this civil society has blunted the honeymoon period runs out, it may as internal struggle. And the man political edge of the cadre. UML well start working on public who has reconciled those workers and other sidekicks in accountability. interests, though personally ‘civil society’ are derisively Extortion and bribery have inclined to the Oli view, is dismissed as doing ‘dollar ko become accepted evils, and unless Madhav Nepal. He is still the kheti’. Nowhere do democracy, they are tackled first, this government decisive player in the party and left politics, and civil society will find it impossible to meet any of its ambitious economic goals. will stage a comeback during the intersect as clearly as inside the convention. UML. Its future decisions will What has complicated the have an impact in all three plot is that the line between the spheres.