 |
| Source: Nepali Times |
After the unification of the two largest
communist parties of Nepal, the crucial question of whether the party should
embrace People's Multi-Party Democracy or 21st Century People's democracy has
surfaced in the discourse of the party. Ironically though, these ideologies are
a far cry from 20th-century typical communist maxims and there is not a significant difference between these ideologies. At present, Nepal Communist
Party (NCP) embraces none of the typical communist features—one-party system,
centralized government, command economy, state-owned means of production or
shared wealth based on need rather than contribution. For better or
worse, these parties had morphed from a communist-inspired force to a liberal
democratic force. In the process, they have conformed to the basic capitalist
tenets such as the right to property and market economy and have embraced
democratic values and civil liberties. Although the communist ambitions of
these parties may have been compromised, the voters gave them an overwhelming
majority to stand up to their socialist and democratic promises. Therefore, the
NCP led government need to emphasis on shared prosperity and treat democracy as
its core principle, irrespective of the semantics of their name or their
official political ideology.
Democratic Values
 |
| Google Images |
Karl Marx envisioned the communist system to
be the dictatorship of the
proletariat. The communist regimes formed after the death of Marx gave little to no
respect for personal liberties and established centralized authoritarian
states. Nepalese communists shed blood like the most communist, but they fought
against the undemocratic state institutions of Panchayat and King Gyanendra's
rule to establish the democratic values of pluralism, press freedom, and
personal liberties. The communists are to be commended for their fight
for democracy, but the signs are telling that the NCP led government is
burgeoning in the scale of authoritarianism.
 |
| Google Images |
In addition to bringing different departments under the Prime
Minister Office’s (PMO’s) direct supervision, the government has stacked its
loyalists in most state and non-state institutions, skewing more power towards
the already powerful government. Meanwhile, NCP has tightened the freedom of speech
within the party and NCP-led government has needlessly imposed
politics into academia, has brought the media bill to hurt the freedom of the
press, and has tabled a bill to curtail political
independence and economic resources of the National Human Rights Commission. On top of
that, the tabled Information Technology(IT) Bill can be to criminalize
reporting on government misconduct and expression of critical opinions
by civil society and citizens by levering the vague provision of protecting
national sovereignty. Similarly, some ministries have
barred their staffs from criticizing the government or party or commenting,
liking or sharing posts to that effect on social media. At other
times, it has deflected any criticism aimed at its workings. It appears that
the current government does not like the idea of ideological feedback or the political debate as it gets offended by the customary criticism from media,
civil society or intellectuals. The communist government is weakening the very the institution it fought to establish.
Equitable Economy
Before the Oli government took power, the
economic growth rate of Nepal was one of the lowest among its peers in
Asia—landlocked or otherwise. Yet, Nepal had significant progress in income inequality
reduction and poverty rate reduction in seven years and fared better than fast-growing
economies like India and Bangladesh in this respect. The job, however, is far
from over for the current government. The current K.P. Oli government has
prioritized economic growth and has set a goal of economic growth as high as eight and a half
percent.
To this end, economic growth of over six percent has been achieved for the last two years. The trend of the economic
growth also looks good, but emphasizing on the economic growth alone has its
pitfalls. For example, the average income of the people in the bottom 50% of
income bracket decreased in real
terms from 1980 to 2010 despite an almost four-fold
increase in the GDP per capita of the USA over the same period.
 |
| Source: Al-Jazeera News |
Therefore, as much as the government’s success
will be measured by economic growth and their support of entrepreneurship, it
will be most gauged by the economic empowerment of the poor and marginalized
people who are the communist party's core political base. If the larger share
of growth is disproportionately shared by those in the upper-income bracket,
the end goal runs counter to the communist ideology. As such, the government
should look at ways to maintain the balance between growth and its
distribution. The researches show that countries
can improve both economic performance and equality without a tradeoff with the
right system and policies. Rampant cronyism and corruption are not the
ingredients of such a system, however!
The Takeaway
 |
| Google Images |
At present, Nepal is the only country to be
ruled by a democratically elected communist party at the central level. While democratically
elected communist parties, at times, have turned into a one-party system as
in Czechoslovakia, these parties, at other times, have held into the government
for considerable time as in Cyprus, Guinea or West Bengal. While the first
avenue seems unlikely, whether the party in Nepal can prolong their hold of
power depends on two distinct entities. The voters are the first entity. The
government has made laudable steps by introducing the social security scheme
and progressive tax system for their political base. However, if the government
does not address the day to day expectations of the people such as more jobs,
better roads, lower corruption, increased wage, rule of law, good governance or
affordable cost of living, the frustrations may manifest in the next election.
The second important entity is the political actors outside of the parliament.
It is not to be forgotten that communist rose to power by tapping in the public
frustration on the issues of exclusion, inequity, and unemployment. The last
bit of their political success came about by inciting the masses against the
authoritarianism of the then King and Panchayat system. The communists
must solve, not systematize, these problems ranging from inequity to
authoritarianism if the country is to achieve the goal of happy-prosperous
country.
