A constitution made through this election will have no meaning

JUL 01 -
Since the Khil Raj Regmi government was formed with the mandate to hold elections, the Mohan Baidya-led CPN-Maoist has consistently opposed the government and plans to hold elections to a new Constituent Assembly (CA). Among its demands are the dissolution of the technocratic Regmi government and the formation of a party-led government through a roundtable. However, a proposal was tabled at Saturday’s Central Committee meeting in Pokhara outlining plans to boycott elections and step up protest programmes. In such a context, The Post’s Roshan Sedhai and Pranaya SJB Rana spoke to CPN-Maoist Vice-chairman and foreign department head CP Gajurel about the possibilities of going to polls, party unity with the UCPN (Maoist) and their protest programmes.

Will you go to elections?

Our bottom line to go to elections is that the 25-point ordinance needs to be scrapped as it is the root cause of everything else that came after, including the 11-point agreement and the Regmi government. We have a non-party government in a multiparty system. There are so many political parties and yet, our government is being run by bureaucrats. The main root of this situation is the 25-point ordinance. It paved the way for all this and it allowed something that should never have been done—it scrapped more than 20 provisions of the constitution. The President doesn’t have the authority to do this.

He says that he did it on the recommendation of the four parties but who gave the four parties this right? The President is called the guardian of the constitution but he himself has betrayed the constitution.

But is it possible to reverse the entire political process?

It must be reversed. A blunder has been committed. It amazes me that this current situation doesn’t worry enough people. So much blood was shed for this Interim Constitution and now so many provisions have been scrapped. This is the document that declares Nepal as a republic. What do we have now besides the interim constitution? We don’t even have a Constituent Assembly. Say, the parties are able to bring out a new constitution. The President can easily scrap that constitution too, claiming that he has done it before. This blunder needs to be corrected. If not, the constitution will not be made and even if it is, there will be no meaning to it.

How will you oppose the election process?

Our opposition doesn’t just mean that we will not vote. We will not go to elections and elections will not be legitimate. We will call on the people to create an environment that will be unsuitable for polls. We will make sure polls will not take place. But we know that this cannot be achieved by taking up arms. The only way is to mobilise the people and bring in as many parties as possible. There is no advantage to us picking up arms again, so why should we do so?

But there is a faction within the party that is of the view that the ‘People’s War’ needs to be completed at any cost.

It is true that the ‘People’s War’ is not complete. But the context in which we started the war was different. Now is a different time. We contested elections and came through as the largest party. Now we have party wings in all 75 districts. We have great support from people in the cities, which we did not have before. We are recognised internationally; all ambassadors come to meet us. We cannot give all this up and go back to a people’s war. We need to raise the agenda of change from where we stand. This is Marxism. No revolutionary party takes up weapons as the first choice; it is always the last resort. We are proceeding with a peaceful revolution but they are not listening to our demands. But the announced election date has already been forgotten by the people. Very few people in the cities talk of elections, let alone in the villages. In such a situation, elections cannot take place.

Why do you say that?

Short answer, elections will not take place because the people don’t want elections to take place. We are holding elections to a Constituent Assembly (CA), so all political forces need to be involved in this. But the country is divided. If one faction does not take part in elections, it will not take ownership of the constitution that is drafted. So what then is the significance of that constitution? But we are not opposed to elections or the CA. This was our agenda, not the Nepali Congress or CPN-UML’s agenda. But now Madhav Nepal, Bijay Gachhadar and Sushil Koirala are now inviting us to take part in what was our own agenda! First, they opposed it on all fronts saying a CA would never work in Nepal. They fired bullets and killed people. Now they have taken it up themselves while the ones who raised the issue have been sidelined. What we need now is a new democracy.  

What will be the character of this new democracy?

The new democracy will fundamentally oppose feudalism and imperialism. Democracy was once revolutionary but later, it was taken over by the status quoists, just like the CA was. But how to define democracy? Having elections alone is not democracy. If a bourgeois party or a group that is feudal, imperialistic and will not help the country is not allowed to form then there is said to be no democracy. Look at Nepal now. There are so many NGO and INGOs that interfere in Nepali politics. But if we say that we don’t need INGOs, then they call us evil, dictators and anti-democracy. So this new democracy should be a people’s democracy.

You have said that the Regmi government was formed under foreign pressure but should there not be agreement within the country for a political course to move in that direction?

The order to form this technocratic government came from across the border. We held a press conference and asked the government not to declare the poll date. That same day, we heard that Manmohan Singh had told Sher Bahadur Deuba that he would be happy if polls were held in November. The government weighed whose voice to heed and they went with India. We are not going to oppose external influence from India; we will do it from Nepal itself. Furthermore, India is acting in Nepal through its agents. Our resistance will be to these agents, these puppets. We are not anti-India. We have good relations with the Indian people. During the years we were underground, the Indian people helped us. There are many in India who still support our revolution. We depend on India for many things, including salt and petroleum. We have a trade and business relationship with India. We only oppose the negative activities of the Indian government.

How do you respond to insinuations that there was external pressure on your party to go to elections?

This news has been planted as the Chinese State Councillor was just here. I am head of the party’s foreign department and any talks would have gone through me. They have categorically said that right now, they have no programmes to meet with any political leaders or parties. The councillor signed some agreements and went back. There were no talks with our Chairman or our party. As far as Chinese advice goes, before our party split, they had told us to not break up as this would make us weaker. But after the split, they have made a decision to treat both parties the same. There is no question of them telling us to go to elections or ally with any party. We cannot hide these kinds of meetings even if they do take place. These people come here with a strict schedule that says who they will meet and when.

On a different note, is there any truth to rumours of party unification?

As long the Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai-led UPCN (Maoist) retains its current ideology and leadership, party unification is impossible. This is a ploy by Prachanda to scare the Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML. If they don’t do what he says, he threatens them by saying he will ally with us and flush them away. Of course, there are people in the UCPN (Maoist) who have an affinity for us and the line that we have taken up. There are such people in other parties too. But party unity is a completely different topic. There needs to be agreement on thought, ideology, line, aim and leadership. We came into the peace process with two agendas: peace and constitution. But now, we don’t have peace and we don’t have a constitution.

Labels: Interview