Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Marty Logan
The local polls are the first step in the return to peace and democracy pledged by King Gyanendra when he ousted his own handpicked prime minister in a bloodless coup Feb.1, 2005. Next month’s vote is supposed to be followed by parliamentary elections in 2007.
But a boycott by a group of seven political parties that took more than 90 percent of votes in the country’s last parliamentary vote, threats from powerful Maoist rebels and a protest-riddled nation-wide strike called by the parties on registration day combined to limit the turnout of candidates.
“It is our success as there is not a single candidacy filed by persons having political understanding and affiliated with the (seven) parties,” Pradip Nepal, spokesman for the Communist Party of Nepal’s Marxist-Leninist wing, told journalists.
In the capital Kathmandu, the largest and most secure city in this small country wedged between Nepal and China, only 98 nominations were filed for 177 seats, including 10 for mayor and eight for deputy mayor.
The spokesman for the government’s Election Commission (EC), Tej Muni Bajracharya, said the office was satisfied with the turnout. The EC will designate a second nomination day in those wards where no candidates registered, he added.
But Bajracharya also told the ‘Nepali Times’ newspaper that not everyone who wanted to registered. “We got complaints from some of the wannabe candidates that they could not get their names registered because of the ‘bandh’ (general strike),” said Bajracharya, “but the main hindrance was the psychology of fear.”
The Maoist rebels, who control up to three-fourths of the countryside outside of Nepal’s municipalities, promised to disrupt the elections after it became clear that King Gyanendra would not heed calls to cancel the vote and join a peace pact signed late last year between the insurgents and the seven-party alliance.
Since he took power, the monarch has surrounded himself with seasoned politicians – many from the pre-democracy ‘Panchayat’ system – rejected all calls to sit with the Maoists and parties and even threatened to brand the latter “terrorists” if they cooperated with the rebels.
King Gyanendra has virtually ignored international urging to restore democracy and initiate peace talks and has cleverly answered cuts in military aid from India, the United States and UK with threatening overtures to their rivals China and Pakistan.
This week, Beijing veered slightly from its stance that Nepal’s deteriorating political situation was an “internal” matter, saying it “hopesàall parties in Nepal can narrow their differences through dialogue”. At the same time the rumour mill here turned furiously with speculation that the monarch would soon make a deal that would see the Nepali Congress party return to power for the third time since 1990’s democratic revolution.
But no deal was made. Instead, on Tuesday the local chairman of one party contesting the elections, Bijay Lal Das, was killed in the southeastern town of Janakpur. After his murder, blamed on the Maoists, the government consented to requests to supply life insurance for all candidates.
On Thursday, another candidate for mayor from the same Nepal Sadbhavana Party was reportedly kidnapped by Maoists in midwestern Bardiya.
Some towns probably saw more arrests than poll papers filed Thursday as party supporters who took to the streets to enforce the general strike skirmished with police.
Two dozen activists were arrested in the western tourist town of Pokhara, where one onlooker was shot in the leg when police opened fire. At least 30 others were arrested in southern Birgunj after they entered the local EC office and tore down election papers. In eastern Dhankuta, activists burnt ballot boxes and chanted slogans against the polls, reports said.
In all, more than 2,000 people were arrested in at least a dozen locations country-wide, said party spokesmen. Some were manhandled by police, whose crowd control weapons include throwing back the rocks and brickbats that demonstrators hurl at them.
But in the capital Kathmandu about 10 peace activists encircled a traffic roundabout and held a silent vigil for peace. “The problems are political; we recognise that,” said Rita Thapa from the voluntary group, Citizens’ Voice. “But we don’t have access to the king, we don’t have access to the political parties, so what do we do?”
The group held small placards and handed out flyers urging those in power to listen to citizens’ calls for peace. Along came Rishi Ram Adhikari, who said he’s been unable to return to his Bardiya because he fears the Maoists, who hold sway there.
“I’ve been concerned for a long time about the situation and asked myself what contribution I could make,” he told IPS. “I thought I would do something like this but I met one MP who told me, ‘what’s the point – the problem is political so the solution must be political’.”
But, said Thapa, “I’ve been telling him that I don’t believe that standing here is the solution but if everyone participated like this it would demonstrate that there is a fourth voice and that civil society is powerful.”
Protests have been growing nation-wide since the government ordered a curfew and rally ban on most areas of the capital after a series of deadly Maoist attacks on police posts in and around the Kathmandu Valley on Jan. 14.
A day before a planned giant rally in the capital Jan. 20, police nabbed political party leaders and dozens of activists in dawn arrests and cut mobile phone service. On Jan. 21 they imposed a day-long curfew.
Clashes between Maoists and security forces have also resumed since the rebels ended their unilateral ceasefire Jan. 3, leaving dozens of insurgents dead.