FOR the months leading up to Nepal’s elections on November 19th, it looked as if preparations for a return to armed conflict were also under way. A breakaway Maoist group—hardliners that split from a moderate group of Maoists—had promised an “active boycott” of voting. They demanded instead an all-party roundtable conference to figure out Nepal’s future. Worried about violence, the government deployed the army for the first time since a peace agreement in 2007. Perhaps not coincidentally, India restarted supplying arms to Nepal’s armed forces, for the first time since 2005.
The Maoist boycotters managed to bring transport to a halt in most of the country for ten days prior to the election. They ran a campaign to intimidate voters using improvised bombs. Casualties, thankfully, were few. A lorry driver died from a petrol bomb attack. A child lost his hand when he opened an abandoned bag laden with explosives. Still, the bombs spread anxiety. Pessimistic pundits said the election would be impossible without a compromise with the boycotting Maoists.
Reality proved otherwise. Enthusiastic voting continued all day on November 19th. By the evening, an ebullient chief election commissioner declared that the results had set a new record. More than 70% of the country’s 12 million voters, he said, had taken part. Politicians, including the Maoists, were quick to send out congratulatory messages.
But the hope that the election would consolidate the peace process proved short-lived. By midnight on November 20th, early results showed that poll-participating Maoists were on their way to defeat. Even their supreme leader, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda (pictured), lost his seat in Kathmandu. The party panicked. On the morning of November 21st—seven years to the day since the rebels signed a peace agreement—the Maoists decided to “stay away” from the new assembly unless counting was immediately suspended. The proposal was rejected outright by the election commission. Distraught party workers now claim that the ballot boxes were tampered with while being ferried by the army.
The future for Nepal’s hardline Maoists, who want to establish a communist regime—as well as for the sore losers who boycotted the election—now looks bleak. But without the Maoists’ participation, the new assembly’s prospects too have dimmed.
The focus now is on the results and the shape of the next government. Nepal has a complicated electoral system that combines a proportional party list and first-past-the-post constituencies. Early results show the Nepali Congress taking the lead, but the final tally could take a week or more. Then forming a government of elected politicians is likely to take several more weeks.
Poll-watchers suggest there is likely to be a “fractured” mandate. A royalist party that wants to bring back a form of monarchy, and make Hinduism the state religion, is likely to do better than before. It won four seats in the last 601-member Constituent Assembly but created noise disproportionate to its size. The party will attempt to reopen the issue already settled in the last assembly. Future coalitions could be divided on their stance on the federal model.
Voter enthusiasm shows that people have not given up on the Constituent Assembly to write a constitution. All parties have promised to write a new one within a year, but since they have broken many promises before, not much store should be set by that. In any case, the new Constituent Assembly has four years to write a constitution. Given parties’ notorious fondness for late-night, last-minute deal making, it appears doubtful that the process will be any quicker this time.
Legal scholars say that the interim constitution written in 2007 can barely guide the rapid political changes. It never envisioned a second assembly, for example, and was amended though a presidential decree to make the sitting Chief Justice the head of the interim government. Reforms are needed soon, to ensure that democracy does not falter.
(Picture credit: AFP)