This emergent popular conviction would decide the winning party in the next election

By Bihari Krishna Shrestha Nepal left to its own devices to solve its chronic political problems While Nepal may not be a God-forsaken country, it certainly remains UN-forsaken as also by the major self-styled arbiters at the world stage such as the US or the EU. For instance, Lebanon in West Asia is a country of nearly 7 million people. Due to its long-running conflict, the UN has since long appointed a special rapporteur who recently bemoaned that the country was on the verge of failing because "the people no longer trust their government". But Nepal has been facing this situation for a long time, but the UN and other world powers could not care less. Although Nepal exists between two giant countries, China to the north does not interfere in the affairs of foreign countries. But India to the south has left no stone unturned in mismanaging its Nepal portfolio that included three blockades of landlocked Nepal, instigating its protectorate, Bhutan, to go for ethnic cleansing of Lhotshampas and dumping them in a third country, Nepal, and aiding, abetting and sheltering decade-long Maoist terrorism in Delhi that killed some 18,000 innocent Nepalese. Nepal suffered a lot because of these atrocities, but unlike in Lebanon lately, no world power such as the US or EU nor the UN censured atrocious India. Occasionally, it was China's countervailing influence that forced India to back off at different times. Worse than "Zombie Democracy" While these world superintendents insist on promoting democracy in Nepal, they could not care less about the fact that what Nepal has is, after all, what the president of America's Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, recently dubbed "Zombie Democracy"(Foreign Affairs, July 2021) which he described as “the living dead of electoral political systems, recognizable in form but devoid of any substance” although they “still hold periodic elections since their people have come to expect them”. However, what Nepal has just now is worse because Nepal's democracy is not only "the living dead", it seems to have morphed into a mafia-like organization under which just about every single politician remains a corrupt man or woman who steadfastly swears allegiance to their bosses in what are essentially gerontocracies headed by the oldest, the most corrupt and the wealthiest. They seem to do so "until death does them apart." However, these parties are basically the mirror image of the feudal order that has chronically defined the hierarchic Nepalese society under which the high caste and rich, locally known as the Thalu or the local despot, lord over the rest of them in this predominantly rural country. Given the Zombie character of the polity the rule-enforcing institutions like anti-corruption watchdog, the CIAA, or the anti-money laundering agency, etc. essentially remain only of cosmetic significance and exist more as parts of the "living dead", for they are all manned by party cronies who are "programmed" to go after the small fries but stay away from their corrupt mentors. International indifference to the plight of the poor nations Unfortunately for small and impoverished countries like Nepal, the interest of the big powers at the world stage has been limited to marshalling their support at the international fora such as the UN and they do so by throwing small crumbs of resources in the name of foreign aid. But they do pay more attention when some of these small countries turn out to be a potential threat to them like North Korea or Iran. Saddam Hussein's Iraq was demolished because he was, at least ostensibly, suspected of having WMDs, or "weapons of mass destruction". UN itself has worked mostly as the handmaiden of these major powers and has, for instance, imposed debilitating sanctions against the above countries with the sole aim of forcing them to stop being a threat to the former. Similarly, they also use other world bodies like the IMF and the World Bank to augment their own economic interest by enforcing such measures such as liberalizing their economies. The fact that the people of Nepal have suffered all these years due to the pseudo-democracy that has been imposed on them has never been a matter of concern for the major powers nor to the UN. Resulting directly from this hopeless governance at the hands of these corrupt politicians, Nepal continues to remain one of the least developed countries in the world whose economy now survives largely from the remittances of its workforce that are spread all over the world. Sanctions for democratic order The one question that the UN and major powers must answer is: Why cannot there be an internationally enforceable list of objectively verifiable conditions of a democratic order that the leaders of these impoverished nations must meet in order to remain a member in the UN or recognition from foreign powers, receiving foreign aid and so on? This would be something like the conditions EU demands of possible new European entrants to the Union. Why must not the UN sanction our corrupt politicians like Koiralas, Dahals, Bhattarais, Thapas, Deubas and Olis and so on and so forth? Some of them have the blood of thousands of Nepalese on their hands and have been evading transitional justice all these years with the connivance of this very gang of corrupt politicians. Lately, even the Supreme Court of the country has been found to be colluding with these corrupt parties in pursuit of their own share in the bhagbanda or the system of sharing the spoils of governance. Egregious foreign interference While the whole world remains oblivious of Nepal's plight all these years, it has been India--a chronically impoverished country itself with a development performance worse than that of Nepal's on many fronts--that postures like a superpower and indulges in muddying the political waters of Nepal. It was India that had caused through this horde of corrupt politicians the imposition of federalism, secularism and republicanism that people have otherwise never demanded. And unfortunately, the northern neighbor, China, chooses to use its countervailing influence only when Nepal's sovereignty itself seems to come under threat. Endogenous search for new instrumentalities: Restoration of the monarchy and Hindu polity and reversing federalization A kind of national fatigue with these multiparty politicos has taken over most of the people in the country today. While democracy is all about accountable and responsive politics, Nepal's brand of politicians, as mentioned above, is just the reverse: Invariably corrupt, liars, opportunists, unethical and immoral. While the manifestos of the political parties, one and all, promise the moon to the people during the election, once the contests are over, nobody cares. This contrasts so poorly with genuine democracies where every single party and politician are held to account for every single promise they make during elections. As the fresh round of elections looms on the horizon in Nepal, taming our politicians and their parties is the challenge people are confronted with. For most people, it is no longer business as usual. Unlike in the past, a new agenda is clearly in the making. The point is that, given the illustrious history of monarchy in Nepal, there is a widely shared belief that "The King could do no wrong". It is this belief that has inspired the regular rallying cry:, "Come back, King, and save the nation". While the operational details of such a slogan are anything but clear, the agenda is certainly not about the return of the absolute monarchy. The conviction behind this resurgent call for the "Return of the King" seems to be that at the present juncture the king alone would seriously represent the cause and concern of the people while dealing with the politicians and their parties to chart out the new rule of democratic politics that would significantly curb the politicians' penchant for corruption, make verifiable service to the constituents the basis for their success in elections, genuinely build an equally friendly relationship with both neighbors, breathe real life into the constitutional bodies to keep the democratic practice on track, and resulting from these reforms, ensure the sustained and accelerated growth of the nation's economy towards making the Nepalese "Happy and Prosperous" in the real sense of the terms. The British American Foreign Affairs specialist and academic, Fiona Hill, who served in the White House under George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, recently wrote in relation to the decadence under Trump presidency: "No country, no matter how advanced, is immune to flawed leadership, the erosion of political checks and balances, and the degradation of its institutions. Democracy is not self-repairing. It requires constant attention." The restoration of the monarchy is going to be Nepal's attempt at repairing its democracy. As things stand, in the coming election only two parties seem to be serious contenders, the UML and the NC. And all indications are that whichever of them embraces this new agenda would most likely sweep the polls.