Nepal’s King Gyanendra stopped political party activists from discussing their role in democracy and democratization in an IDEA-organized May workshop with South Asian parties.
International IDEA had invited representatives from four of the eight mainstream parties in Nepal to a workshop in Sri Lanka to discuss with party representatives from other South Asian countries about the challenges they face, explore the roles of political parties in democracy and democratization, and learn from each other’s experiences of party reform and change. The workshop was meant to discuss the political party research results at the South Asian level.
But the four Nepalese politicians never reached Sri Lanka. Security forces stopped them at Kathmandhu airport and prevented them from leaving. “With this decision, the king has again shown that he intends to stop activities that might lead to a democratization of the country”, said Maja Tjernström, assistant programme officer. “The people of Nepal are being denied the right to have diverse political parties that are responsive actors, free to organize and express their views”, she noted.
On 1 February 2005, the king managed to stage a coup with relative ease, imposing a state of emergency, seizing absolute power and dismantling universal freedoms of assembly, expression and movement. Some claim that this was not due to any outstanding support for an absolute monarchy – nor because of any belief that the royal army could actually win over the Maoist rebels – but rather that the political parties and the political leaders had failed to deal with some of the key problems that ordinary citizens face.
Within hours of the coup, most top-level politicians and human-rights activists were in prison or under house arrest. The rest were effectively stopped from leaving Kathmandu. Phone lines were cut, censorship hardened and communication both within the country and with the outside world stopped.
Since then, political parties have increasingly taken initiatives to unite in demands to reinstate the dissolved Parliament and limit the king’s power. For the first time, the parties have also engaged in open discussions about how they can be better actors in a democratic process. Political parties are now discussing how they could deal with the widespread corruption, break the stalemate in the negotiations with the Maoists, and regain the confidence of the voters.
As earlier IDEA projects have shown, the people of Nepal prefer democracy to any other form of governance, and believe that democracy is the right way to end the civil war between the Maoists and the royal army.
For more information, contact Maja Tjernström, assistant programme officer.
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