After promulgation of the Constitution of Nepal, 2072, Nepal has witnessed a historic transformation in the political arena. After observing, the first-ever historic elections under the federal set-up for three tiers of governments namely for local, provincial and federal, the prominent questions have surfaced amid the political analyst, and academicians as well as a conscious mass on the success and sustainability of the political system and governance. The paramount question before us is to fortified and strengthen the democratic system and steer up the socio-economic advancement fulfilling the aspiration of the people within the given constitutional framework. A study conducted by the Election Observation Committee Nepal on election campaign finance presented an inside story of unaccounted expenditure pattern, its size by the political parties and candidates, which is presumed as unhealthy for a functioning democracy. For the advocacy of good governance, is planning to have a broader approach in political scope and carry on further study on the following topic, which in our belief may bring into the light of the political ills and methods for their remedy.
Political Funding:
There has been voices in the political circle that an arrangement of political funding would enable the political parties proportionately enhance their capabilities in propagating their political agenda in a wider spectrum through reaching out to the grass-root level. They also believe that such a practice would also encourage the parties to follow the best practices of good governance in running their internal management system including the financial management. As the basic objective of political funding is to make political parties accountable and transparent in the public view, it would help in supporting to build internal democracy within the party structures. Since public resources being invested to the political parties, the check and control mechanism devised within the law may help in creating a level playing field among the political parties within the premise of the given system.
There are also antagonism against the political parties on part of managing inner-party democracy and financial resources. However, all the parties have submitted their audited financial statement to the election commission, the substantial part of the contents are rarely checked by the election commission. The omission of donation amount in the financial statement is a common practice since the donation are received by the main leader of the party. The financial management of all the parties are basically controlled by the main leader at his whim and interest. Providing additional public resources to the party would not help in reducing the monopoly of the leader in maintaining proper financial records, so the conscious watcher believes.
In this context, the crux of the questions can be summed up as follows:
Election Campaign Finance:
For many years, the politicians are raising the issues of election campaign finance for the political parties. They are constantly advocating that the campaign funding would help in constraining the political parties play within the set rules and democratic values. They also believe that campaign finance would also help in controlling unhealthy competition between contesting candidates and parties. While it sounds good that the parties are supported financially by the state in their election campaign expenditure, the real picture is very much contrast against the projected ideas and ideals. The finding of the study says that the election campaign finance is becoming extremely expensive beyond comprehension. In a recently held elections, the winning candidate for the federal parliament has spent about ten million rupees against near about expenditure of the nearest contestant. From local level election to the federal elections, each and every candidate have spent exceeding far above the legal limit as set by the election commission. During the study, each and every party interviewed avoided to disclose the source of corporate donation they received. In some corners, it was also smelled that the candidates were also supported by the outer source, which was entirely illegal.
In such background, would it be prudently right to adopt a policy of providing election campaign finance to the political parties? Can the election campaign finance would be success to check the political parties and candidates to receive directly or indirectly the foreign fund to use for the election campaign? If the election campaign pattern remains the same even after the campaign finance from the treasury, would not it be the waste of public resources?
Inner-party democracy:
There are more than a hundred registered political parties in Nepal. About forty parties had contested in the recently held elections. Except the major political parties, most of the parties have a narrow support and supporter base with minimum number of party membership. For years, these parties are run by the same office bearers without holding any general conventions and elections for their political units and center. The major parties are also not an exception in exercising inner-party democracy. Since the parties are the pillar of democracy and foundation for growing and raising leadership for the future generation, most of the parties are run by the same leaders for decades, which is a clear indication that the parties lack inner-party democracy.
Now the question is: how to make realize the parties to exercise inner-party democracy for the healthy development of organization and building leadership excellence at par.
Local leaders’ role in a cycle of election:
The general practice of all the political parties in nominating candidates to contest election is based on selection method on leader’s choice rather than the election within the party members and popularity based. While selecting the candidates, one of the overriding factor taken into account is the financial capacity of the candidate to spend for the campaign. The financial favors to the leaders were also featured openly in the past elections that we observed. This has long been a predicament in political domain for grooming right and popular candidate to be elected for the political post.
For sustaining democracy, the onus responsibilities lies at the local level of governance, which plays a significant role in strengthening democracy. Presently, more than 45,000 local leaders are serving in different post at the local units having direct access and contact with the people. These are the leaders who inherently form the concept of the people towards the system and parries based on their performance.
In such case, what should be the role of the party cadres and general members in nominating their future leader to contest elections?
Should the party’s high command be allowed to overplay the nomination criteria?
What happens to follow a system in nominating candidate by popular vote among the party members and a certain percentage of weightage awarded to opposition parties to cast their ballot in selecting a candidate?
System support on existing federal set-up, its sustainability and progression
The federal system of governance is very new to Nepal and leaders virtually have no experience in running the system according to its essence. In order to make the successful practice of the governance, the government including the federal, provincial and local have to design and place the system that functions well with the spirit of federalism. The delay in introducing the system and implementing and executing them may call for public outcry and restraint towards the system and governance.
In such a situation, defining the role and responsibilities as well as discharging the constitutional and popular obligation of the political leadership has tremendous opportunities with the prerequisite of traits, vision, will power and actions to deliver.
The questions of How can we steer the system towards a functioning mechanism? What propels the system to gear forward? What are the predicament and obstacles on its way to forward? How to quench the mass resentment against the system and bring it into the mainstream? Are onerous to be ponder with.