Editorial
On to the polls
The Election Commission should be allowed to decide when it wants to hold the polls.In what appears to be good news for Nepal’s nascent federal democratic system, the ruling alliance has in principal agreed to hold the local elections ‘on time’, although it is not clear whether it will go with the Election Commission’s proposal. The electoral management body has proposed that the local elections be held in April-May (April 27 if it is to be held in a single phase, and April 27 and May 5 if it is to be held in two phases). While the opposition CPN-UML wants the local elections to be held on the dates proposed by the commission, the CPN-Maoist Centre and the CPN-Unified Socialist are learnt to have been pressing for delaying the elections. But the fact that we have to be relieved upon hearing about the political parties deciding to hold the polls ‘on time’ speaks volumes about the deep suspicion we have about these parties.
The fact that the parties are deliberating on when to hold the elections speaks of the unnecessary power they yield over the electoral process. The Election Commission should be allowed to decide independently on when it wants the elections to be held as per the constitutional mandate. Although the political parties are significant stakeholders of the electoral process, the issue of holding periodic elections on time should be the prerogative of the commission, whose primary function is to conduct free and fair elections. Moreover, as we battle the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, there is no telling of the scenario in April-May. It is all too clear that the political parties do not care about the safety of the people. So the Election Commission should come up with clearly thought-out alternatives and guidelines in case physical voting cannot be held.
The parties are not known to consider elections as a means to buttress democracy as much as they are known to use them to gain power. If they end up building a consensus on a particular date without much fiasco, it is to be understood that they have all made their calculations and arrived at a similar conclusion from their own varying standpoints. So deep is our suspicion of the political parties; the suspicion, of course, stems from the recalcitrant manner in which the parties conduct themselves when it comes to working collectively towards strengthening the democratic process. The question that arises, then, is: What happens if the parties cannot build a consensus on when to hold the elections? There is no doubt that the parties’ decision on elections depends on their petty calculations rather than a genuine commitment to holding periodic elections in time.
In any case, the same parties that dominate national politics will be the main contestants in the local elections since there are no formidable provincial political parties as of today. Notwithstanding their national-level profiles, the political parties will likely have to contest the elections on local issues. Although the local levels have had several hiccups when it comes to institutionalising democracy, they have also elicited considerable hope, especially concerning development, among the people. From forming localised policies on development issues to finding local solutions to handling the Covid-19 crisis, some local level administrations have shown ample promises. But then, there are concerns-often genuine–that corruption has spread its tentacles to the remotest of places through the local levels. So the local elections this time will, apart from being a ‘dance of democracy’, be a plebiscite on whether the political structure we have adopted is really working for us.