It’s just that the incumbent has proved to be doubly zealous. So it is perhaps natural to expect the opposition to be equally faithful in their Newtonian fervor.
The escalating Covid-19 pandemic, Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli’s invocation of the elections in the United States and the razor-thin patience of Nepalis have made the political firmament bleaker. (Not to exempt all those pesky astrologers on YouTube.)
The presidency is in the worst shape. According to the dominant narrative, the institution was created because the palace was becoming too creative with Article 12. Yet we can’t stop heap scorn on a ceremonial head of state for rubber-stamping the premier’s fancies. Not to put too fine a point on it, everything in Nepal seems fair in hate and peace.
With weighty matters like citizenship being decided through ordinance, the presidency is bound to sink deeper into the morass along with the premiership. But, hey, maybe we can finally circle the square by completing the triangle: endorsement of the Millennium Challenge Corporation compact with the United States and enactment of the extradition treaty with China by decree.
At another level, it’s become fashionable to affirm that the 12-point process has come full circle. Yet that is being unfair. This is a case where one must defend that maligned accord/agreement/understanding or whatever else it was. The three pillars of our polity – republicanism, secularism and federalism – in no shape, manner or form resemble what the Seven Party Alliance and the Maoist rebels had undertaken to construct in November 2005. The fact that real architect couldn’t welcome the culmination of that process – the current Constitution – says enough.
Sure, politicos as distinct as Narayan Man Bijukchhe and Rajendra Mahato support President Bidya Bhandari’s decision, but they are few and far between. Anyway, they have their own reasons for doing so.
From outside the tent, King Gyanendra aimed some of his most blistering words yet against the political fraternity (assuming, again, if the tweet really is his).
On the far left, Netra Bikram Chand ‘Biplav’ party wants a referendum on abolishing the parliamentary system and the institution of a ‘progressive political system’ through national consensus (without elaborating on what such a system might be).
The right – far, near, and in between – sees in this sordid saga a justification for the restoration of the monarchy.
Still others blame the monarchy for mishandling things so bad over two and a half centuries that the people were forced to bring in a president to make things worse. For a change, we seem to have cut foreign powers some slack this time, given our urgent need for vaccines.
The moral of the story? Heck, who knows if there is any? Still, proffering one becomes incumbent in places like this one. So here it is: stick to the plan all the way through, no matter how nebulous. It may not work but still prove less fickle than public opinion and geopolitical equations.
