Nepal elects Maoist prime minister, 4th leader in 4 years

[EmperorScorpious]

[QUOTE]Kathmandu, Nepal (CNN) -- Nepal's parliament on Sunday elected a leader of the former Maoist rebels as the new prime minister with a simple majority.

Baburam Bhattarai, 57, vice-chairman of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) will become the fourth prime minister since Nepal became a republic in 2008.

After his election Bhattarai said he would attempt to complete the peace process and the long-delayed new constitution.

Bhattarai received 340 votes in parliament, beating his rival Ram Chandra Poudel, 66, of the Nepali Congress, who received 235 votes.

Bhattarai, who has a degree in architecture and a doctorate in regional planning, was able to get the crucial support of the regional Madhesi parties from southern Nepal.

The 65 votes of the five parties of the Madhesi front were crucial for Bhattrai, whose party is the biggest in the 601-member parliament but lacks a majority.

Media reports say the Madhesi parties have been promised 12 ministerial posts in exchange for their support.

Bhattari is the second leader of the former rebels to become prime minister.

The Maoists became the biggest party in the 2008 elections and their chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal was prime minister for nine months. He resigned in a dispute with the president, who reinstated an army chief Dahal had fired.

Earlier this month Jhalanath Khanal resigned as prime minister after he was unable to persuade the former Maoist rebels to demobilize and reintegrate their fighters in a deal that was agreeable to the other political parties.

The Maoists fought a ten-year insurgency from 1996 to 2006 in which about 16,000 people were killed.

According to the peace deal that ended the uprising, 19,602 United Nations-verified combatants should be integrated into the security forces, but the political parties are yet to agree on the number and the method.

Nepal also faces the challenge of preparing a republican constitution and political parties have twice extended the deadline to prepare the constitution.

The new deadline expires on Wednesday and political parties look likely to have to come to an agreement to extend the deadline a third time.[/QUOTE]

Source: [url]http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/08/28/nepal.politics/index.html[/url]

[bobsmit]

It's incredible how easy it is to never hear about this sort of thing. 16,000 people died in 10 years but I had no idea whatsoever that a revolution was taking place in Nepal.

[Sobotnik]

[QUOTE=bobsmit;31997234]It's incredible how easy it is to never hear about this sort of thing. 16,000 people died in 10 years but I had no idea whatsoever that a revolution was taking place in Nepal.[/QUOTE]

Things that are reported on are generally in the best interests of the news corporation telling them, if it isn't of use to them they will ignore it, and if there are two sides in conflict they will switch between them purely for their own interest.

[MercZ]

[QUOTE=bobsmit;31997234]It's incredible how easy it is to never hear about this sort of thing. 16,000 people died in 10 years but I had no idea whatsoever that a revolution was taking place in Nepal.[/QUOTE]

The overthrow of the Kingdom of Nepal and the subsequent events has been rather chaotic. The article simplifies manners though- while the new PM is from a "Maoist" party, there's been some big political divisions in the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) over what direction it should take. Bhattarai is from one of the three major factions that have developed in there.

A rough, brief sketch of the country's history. TL;DR warning. Just a note of warning- like India, Nepal has a fuckton of "Communist" parties. They differentiate themselves usually by what they put in parenthesis afterwards. The main Maoist outfit is the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), while the one more social-democratic and pro-India in orientation would be the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), which is in a partnership with the Nepali Congress Party for the most part.

Before all this began Nepal was a very undeveloped country. For much of history it was a absolute monarchy that worked with landlords. An attempt at parliamentary democracy was briefly attempted in 1959, but this was dissolved in 1960. After that the country pretty much was a textbook authoritarian monarchy, and to boot with no progress in land reform which kept a lot of people downtrodden.

In 1991, after popular agitation, a legislative body was formed. It maintained the illusion of a bourgeoisie parliamentary monarchy, but was in reality a country fully at the whim of the monarch and landlords.

In 1990 a Maoist party known as the Communist Party of Nepal (Unity Centre) was formed. This was on the heels of a "progressive" front of more mainstream parties that had already began demanding more democratic change and viewed the monarchy's decision to create a legislature as a success- but the communists felt unconformable with collaborating with those parties at the time. One Pushpa Kamal Dahal, better known as Prachanda, would rise to prominence in this party.

There was labor strike in 1992 which led to violence, which allowed for the communists to continue gaining influence.

It set up an electoral party, the Samyukta Jana Morcha, to operate in parliament and participate in the first elections. This was led by Baburam Bhattarai, which the article mentions.

In the mid-1990s disputes led to Communist Party of Nepal (Unity Centre) breaking off from the SJM and deciding to take a more militant/revolutionary approach, becoming known as the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), led by Prachanda (real name Puspa Kamal Dahal). It declared the legislature as being subject to the whims of the monarchs and the landed establishment and not representing the people. It also declared all the large parties who continued to participate in parliament as being enemies.

In 1995 there was attacks in remote areas of Nepal on government buildings by the Maoists. In early 1996, Bhattarai (the SJM guy) presented the Nepali Congress-led government at the time with a list of demands. These were related to radical land reform and threatened war if not met. They were not, and the Maoists then formally declared a "People's War" against the Nepalese government, with the aim of destroying the monarchy and establishing a socialist state.

The first phases of war were characterized by Maoist operations in the more far flung areas of Nepal, and did not face the full force of the Nepalese government- rather police and irregulars. This tactic adhered to a protracted "People's War" in Maoist ideas, of starting the insurrection in remote and tough terrain where a revolutionary base can be established.

This was interrupted by a number of peace negotiations over the list of demands and each time an accord was not able to be reached.

All the while the Maoists began to exert themselves over areas where they had influence and attempt to put into practice some of their ideals. The Maoists began to gain a reputation for being the only force truly against the monarchy's grip on the country.

The fallibility and human flaws of the Royal Family, were displayed to the people in 2001. The crown-prince went on a shooting spree and killed nine members of the family, including the King and Queen. This was not needed for the power establishment which already had an insurrection on its hand. Power then passed to the crown-prince's brother, Gyanendra, who became King.

Seizing the opportunity the Maoists began to increase agitation as the government presented signs of weakness. In 2001 Prachanda began to declare that the Maoist revolution in Nepal would be done with the conditions of Nepal in mind, something that has since been termed the "Prachandra Path".

In 2001 and 2002 the Maoists attacked the military, and the war escalated as it gave pretext for the military to intervene in the fighting. The King, arguing that Nepal was in danger of collapsing, began to take "emergency" power and frequently dissolved parliament. The West and India gave the Monarchy aid in their efforts.

The Monarchy also began to crack down on press, people, and organizations critical of its activities, saying that the crown could not be slandered and associating them with the rebels.

All the while the Maoists began to gain ground. Again there were periodic attempts to end the fighting, but the demands were often rejected by the Monarchy. These usually came in the form of the Maoists demanding direct talks with the King rather than the Prime Minister and having the talks mediated by the UN. Cease-fires were attempted, broken, and both sides blamed the other for breaching it.

By late 2004 the Maoists had created a situation where the government had virtually little power outside of the capital. The Maoists then began to make moves to bring the People's War full circle and focus on the capital, laying siege to the Kathmandu valley.

In early 2005, saying that the government had been ineffective in handling the rebellion, the King formally dissolved government and assumed "emergency" powers. If there was any doubt that the parliament was subordinate to the King by citizens of Nepal, it was blatantly apparent by now. Fighting escalated and soon more people joined the rebellion besides those sympathetic to the aims of the Maoists.

This began to have a noticeable impact on Nepal's economy. Tourism had begun to decline substantially, and a number of Nepalese left the country to the Middle-East and south-east Asian states for work.

By this point the Maoists were not alone in being overtly anti-monarchy. The former parties in parliament organized themselves as the Seven-Parties Alliance and reached an understanding with the Maoists for a common goal- a true and "fair" parliamentary election for a constituent assembly.

In February of 2006 the SPA led a boycott of municipal elections, citing that many opposition leaders to the government were being harassed and unable to commit to it. In April the Maoists and SPA led a nation wide strike, leading to massive protests which were met by violence from the state.

In April of 2006, with discontent ever increasing, the King re-instituted parliament but not elections. Maoists rejected this move, but responded to a call by the Prime Minister for a cease-fire.

A parliamentary session in May stripped the Monarchy of a number of powers. Among these was taking away control of the military, placing a tax on royal assets, and declaring Nepal a secular state. They also made preparations for the formation of a Constituent Assembly, one of the Maoists' demands.

Through the rest of 2006 and much of 2007 there was a lot of back and forth between the parliament and the Maoists over how the Constituent election was to take place and how representation was to be handled. The Maoists also walked out when the intern government could not agree to a full republic but rather a compromise of a parliamentary monarchy. Eventually this was resolved. The Maoists justified allowing a Constituent Assembly to happen saying it was a stagist approach.

On April 10, 2008 the Constituent election was finally held. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) gained the largest share- 229 seat, with Nepali Congress at 115, and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) at 108, and other parties rounding out the rest of the 575 seats. Among this number included a plethora of other communist and socialist-type groups.

The first decision by this constituent establishment was abolishing the monarchy and declaring the republic. King Gyanendra was ordered to leave the main palace, which he did, and went to a smaller residence where he currently is with the rest of the former royal family.

After this unanimous move, it got to the power bantering. The Maoists were able to secure the power to form a government and Prachanda became Prime Minister in August of 2008, with Nepali Congress landing the position of president.

Maoists began to have issues in creating a constitution with their aims in mind, as the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) presented a consistent block to their initiatives. To top this off Prachanda's efforts to dispose of the Army Chief of Staff who was hostile to the Maoists failed, and the Nepali Congress president annulled this decision.

Resulting power struggles and continued delays in drafting the constitution led to Prachanda resigning in May of 2009, where his position of Prime Minister was replaced by a politician from the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist), and the opposition parties then began to go about the stages of planning their own constitution to counter the Maoists.

By this point the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) had merged with the Communist Party of Nepal (Unity Centre – Masal), forming what is now the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), UCPN-M.

Since then Prachanda has been upping the ante on the constituent assembly. Blaming the opposition for sabotaging attempts to create a constitution, Prachanda began to flex the muscle of the Maoists, who were still pretty much in control of areas they had won in the civil war. And unsurprisingly the opposition parties had their own disputes and government stalled.

Most recently there have been a lot of divisions in the chief Maoist party, between factions led by Prachanda, Bhattarai, and another by vice-chair Mohan Baidya (AKA Kiran). The trade unions led by the party split along those lines as well. Again, these are over questions of how to carry out their political demands and their relationship to China and India. The party itself hasn't split, but the differences are there.

To this point as far as I know the Constituent Assembly is still in a deadlock- this new PM appointment are attempts by the parties in the assembly to outmaneuver each other and form a constitution and political framework favorable to them. Besides the economic and political structures at stake, there's essentially a question of whether Nepal should orient towards China or India.

What ever the case, this proves for some interesting events in a country that otherwise few would care about beyond Mt. Everest.

[LordLoss]

I visited Nepal in late '08, best experience of my life.