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Not So Revolutionary in Kathmandu

By John Child in Kathmandu

It's both a good thing and a bad thing.

Nepal's Maoist-led coalition government's programs and policies announced last week aren't much of a revolution according to a poll in a national weekly newspaper. Only 27 percent of respondents rated the package that way, while 40 percent called it "status quo."

But a status-quo consensus isn't bad, given fears in some quarters about what the Maoists would do. And most Nepalis care less about new policies than about having an honest and effective government. Any program that can deliver development and engender a little hope will be fine.

Better government will require consensus. American revolutionary and later the second US president, John Adams, was asked what the fundamentals of good democracy were. "Compromise, compromise, and compromise," he said. Not compromise on principle, but compromising personal and party interests in favor of the national interest.

Since Nepal's elections, the bickering over power sharing, the presidency, appointments, protocol lists, and personal affronts has been transparently about individual and party agendas, not the country's needs. Criticisms of the government's program have also smacked of self-interest.

But the process has worked. Coalition leaders have been forced to compromise to produce a moderate consensus plan. That's a good thing.

It could be much better. It has taken five months since the elections to form a government and set its direction. That's far too slow. Politicians will have to speed up the process dramatically to deliver on their promises to voters. And to do that they will have to curtail the status quo of political business as usual and behave like statesmen.

It will be a revolutionary change if they can.

John Child is The NewsBlaze Nepal Correspondent, a journalist in Kathmandu who writes about goings-on in and around Nepal and her neighbors.