Published : 12 Feb 2014, 04:31 PM
The long political stalemate in Nepal has been broken and veteran Nepali Congress leader Sushil Koirala, who spent 16 years in India in self-imposed exile, has been elected as its prime minister. Sushil Koirala, a cousin of former prime minister G.P. Koirala, was elected with 405 votes in his favour in the 601-member Constituent Assembly. 148 lawmakers from Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-Maoist), Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal and some small parties in the Maoist-led alliance voted against Koirala.
To become the prime minister, a candidate needs more than 50 per cent votes under the interim Constitution. So how did the Nepali Congress, with only 194 seats, manage to get its nominee elected as the prime minister?
The standing committee of the CPN-UML — the second largest party which has 173 lawmakers — backed Koirala for the top post after the party reached a six-point deal with the Nepali Congress.
The deal is a classic in political accommodation and something that the two leading parties in Bangladesh should closely study. The main highlights of the deal are (a)Promulgation of a new constitution within a year as per the spirit of all past agreements reached after the 12-point agreement to till now (b) own up the historical declarations made by the first meeting of the last Constituent Assembly (c) Election of a new president, vice-president and Chairman of Constituent Assembly before the implementation of new constitution (d) Constituent Assembly to endorse a proposal to give continuity to the incumbent president and vice-President (e) CPN-UML to support the NC-led government (f) CPN-UML to get the post of chairman of Constituent Assembly and NC to support (g) Announcement of a code of conduct of the cabinet and common minimum program within the seven days after formation of the government.
The agreement is all about power sharing. What brings the two parties together is their determination to keep out a Maoist led alliance. Both the leading parties have spearheaded ruling coalitions in the past, until they were struck by the Maoist steamroller, first by insurgent action and then by the electoral challenge they posed on joining electoral politics. The agreement is all about breaking the political stalemate that would give Nepal a government and a constitution and strengthen rather than undermine democracy and keep both royalists and Maoists at bay.
Can't Bangladesh have a political consensus between the two leading parties that help them share power and guide the country through a critical period that some see as a make-or-break for the country's economy and social fabric? Like the Maoists in Nepal, the Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh may stand to gain by unleashing a civil war or try to capture power through extensive turmoil. In the long run, it neither benefits the Awami League nor the BNP. Like in Nepal where democracy was at stake because of constitutional deadlock, in Bangladesh what is at stake is the nation's future identity as a secular country based on Bengali language and culture. The Jamaat does not figure in that secular democratic vision of Bangladesh that emerged out of the 1971 Liberation War.
Democracy divides more than it unites in the relentless quest for power. To make democracy meaningful to a poor but aspiring nation like Bangladesh, power sharing may sometimes become necessary so that the political elites don't ruin the country by their mindless opposition to each other. They rather need to unite to keep the country the way it emerged after a bitter war of independence from Pakistan. The two leading parties in Nepal fought each other in elections and against monarchy and then had to fight the Maoists. Now they are in the same boat to steer the one-time Himalayan kingdom towards democracy. Can't Bangladesh learn from a poor neighbour rather than seek answers in far-off western lands?
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Syed Bashir is a bdnews24.com columnist.