The recent agreement between the seven parties and the Maoists will not benefit the country in any way and it will become a setback to multi-party democracy in the country. The agreement has tried to portray the King and the political parties as weak entities. Therefore, the agreement has, instead of strengthening the democratic system, pushed the country towards a more uncertain future.
By entering into such an agreement, the parties have exposed their weak points. It is becoming clear that the political parties wrongly think when the state and the Maoists have arms they cannot make their presence felt in the country without having weapons. It is mystifying that they choose to side with the Maoists despite knowing that the Maoists are not for democracy and a multi-party system.
It does not need any elaboration that the communist parties and the Maoists do not believe in multi-party democracy in the real sense and their only aim is to establish a communist state in Nepal. Although parties like CPN-UML have said that they go for multi-party system they have not rejected at least principally that their ultimate aim is to go for a communist state.
In such a situation, it is natural for one to ask what is a party like the Nepali Congress, which had always advocated multi-party democracy doing in the camp of the communists and even agreeing to the agenda of the Maoists. If multi-party democracy is to take root in the country, parties like Nepali Congress and others even the communists, who had participated in the past elections, should join hands with the king.
By talking about the constituent assembly and even agreeing to the Maoists’ agenda for such an election, the Nepali Congress and the other parties may be digging graves for themselves. The reason is the Maoists have the weapons and they have evicted the parties from most parts of the country. The presence of the state and the political parties has been confined to the cities and the district headquarters. The state has failed to curb the Maoists’ atrocities in the villages. In such a situation, how can parties think that the election of the constituent assembly would be favourable to their ideas?
It is certain that if there is election for the constituent assembly the Maoists will get their majority representation in the constituent assembly by means of weapons and terror they have perpetrated in the last 10 years and can give legitimacy to their agenda. There is no way the parties can stop them. Then the first victims of the Maoist agenda will be the political parties, human right activists, press and all those who advocate democracy.
Therefore the only way to stop the Maoists is that the political parties must participate in the election as announced by the state and put pressure on the Maoists to participate in it and come into the political mainstream. Again, it is necessary to bring in peace and security by making the Maoists put down the arms and agree to the terms of democratic process before a general election or other kind of countrywide election is held.
By Monohar Bista
