A Prime Minister No More
A few days ago the Prime Minister of Nepal announced his resignation. I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Maoist government is on the verge of collapse. And it is not so much the Maoists themselves who brought this upon them, but quite possibly a weary people seeking change.
The word ‘change’ is relative in Nepal. Has anybody forgotten the democratic transition from the old monarchy within a couple of short years? What exactly is change within the political parties? That old men merely take the place of older men? People here are fully aware of their limitations under the Maoist regime. However, if the Maoist regime were to disperse, what would happen then? Do people want to know? Is this what they took to the streets for? They understand that they are standing on a cliff with a hungry white Himalayan snow leopard bearing down on them. Do they want to take that jump, knowing that they could land on a soft bed of snow or the hard ice of a glacier?
It started innocuously enough. The Prime Minister sacked the Army Chief of Staff last week, claiming the General refused to obey civilian orders. The General remained at HQ, claiming the Prime Minister didn’t have the legal authority to remove him from power. The President, the nominal and de jure (although not de facto) head of state, sided with the General, whereupon the Prime Minister in a press conference announced his resignation.
And now the party begins. People are taking to the streets, demonstrators are clashing with the police, and an entire nation waits with baited breath for what this all means for their young republic. Since the announcement of his resignation, the Prime Minister’s popularity has soared. People recognized that he was willing to give up power in exchange for his honor, for the right to govern within the executive branch the way the constitution dictated it. People understandably have seen their share of oligarchs in power, the military being quite prominent in these, so that it shouldn’t come as a revelation that the military’s and thus the Chief of Staff’s support is virtually nil.
These events may be surprising, but hardly unexpected. The grand majority of the population never considered the Maoists and Centrist (the deceptively named Marxist Leninists) powers an alliance with any staying power. With the general population, it’s almost comical: now that people are done complaining about the government, now that they have rallied for more causes than you can shake a stick at, what exactly do they want now? Difficult question. I am not sure people even know themselves. There seems to be a general wave of confusion since the abolishment of the monarchy, and who can blame them? People must have wondered where all of these freedoms came from that they so utterly lacked for all of those years under a king.
The constitution, on the other hand, is equally confusing and has the clarity of the Bagmati River in Kathmandu. Our attorneys in the west would have a field day with this one. Just who has how much authority when, where, and why? Perhaps that is something still being scrutinized, as the Prime Minister and his cabinet are making way for a successor. The answer might not matter. What does is that the Nepalis, no strangers to hardship, deserve a peaceful solution and at least some stability and sense of sanity in a government apparently gone ballistic.
The word ‘change’ is relative in Nepal. Has anybody forgotten the democratic transition from the old monarchy within a couple of short years? What exactly is change within the political parties? That old men merely take the place of older men? People here are fully aware of their limitations under the Maoist regime. However, if the Maoist regime were to disperse, what would happen then? Do people want to know? Is this what they took to the streets for? They understand that they are standing on a cliff with a hungry white Himalayan snow leopard bearing down on them. Do they want to take that jump, knowing that they could land on a soft bed of snow or the hard ice of a glacier?
It started innocuously enough. The Prime Minister sacked the Army Chief of Staff last week, claiming the General refused to obey civilian orders. The General remained at HQ, claiming the Prime Minister didn’t have the legal authority to remove him from power. The President, the nominal and de jure (although not de facto) head of state, sided with the General, whereupon the Prime Minister in a press conference announced his resignation.
And now the party begins. People are taking to the streets, demonstrators are clashing with the police, and an entire nation waits with baited breath for what this all means for their young republic. Since the announcement of his resignation, the Prime Minister’s popularity has soared. People recognized that he was willing to give up power in exchange for his honor, for the right to govern within the executive branch the way the constitution dictated it. People understandably have seen their share of oligarchs in power, the military being quite prominent in these, so that it shouldn’t come as a revelation that the military’s and thus the Chief of Staff’s support is virtually nil.
These events may be surprising, but hardly unexpected. The grand majority of the population never considered the Maoists and Centrist (the deceptively named Marxist Leninists) powers an alliance with any staying power. With the general population, it’s almost comical: now that people are done complaining about the government, now that they have rallied for more causes than you can shake a stick at, what exactly do they want now? Difficult question. I am not sure people even know themselves. There seems to be a general wave of confusion since the abolishment of the monarchy, and who can blame them? People must have wondered where all of these freedoms came from that they so utterly lacked for all of those years under a king.
The constitution, on the other hand, is equally confusing and has the clarity of the Bagmati River in Kathmandu. Our attorneys in the west would have a field day with this one. Just who has how much authority when, where, and why? Perhaps that is something still being scrutinized, as the Prime Minister and his cabinet are making way for a successor. The answer might not matter. What does is that the Nepalis, no strangers to hardship, deserve a peaceful solution and at least some stability and sense of sanity in a government apparently gone ballistic.
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