PRANAV BHATTARAI
Republica
Opinion
What makes democracy functional? And what causes its downfall? Why has the world’s supposedly best system failed in many countries? Different studies worldwide have tried to explore the answers to these questions. Countries emerging out of ‘system transition’ have fallen to autocracy or some sort of despotism.
There are ample but painful lessons from other failed states. Freedom House, a US-based International Non-Governmental Organization, in its 2009 report noted declines of electoral democracies to 116, the lowest number since 1995. As Nepal is also in the most difficult transition in history, we must take caution that Nepal doesn’t rollback to any form of undemocratic regime because of our inability to institutionalize strong democratic institutions during transition to federalism.
Nepal is now emerging out from the ashes of the past conflict, and has miles to go before it projects itself as a stable, transparent and prosperous federal democracy in the world arena. Of the many challenges, pervasive corruption, bad governance, deteriorating rule of law and weak state institutions are impediments to Nepal’s successful transition to federal republic. A series of failed prime ministerial elections, deteriorating rule of law, fragile security, two-digit inflation, slumped economy, growing unemployment, rampant corruption, widening poverty, moribund development, rising trade deficit, unregulated market, politicized bureaucracy, poor service delivery, derelict public institutions and fractious politics are enough to choke up Nepal’s democratization process.
Democracy has not been able to deliver development and good governance as expected. Nepal is facing a Herculean challenge to promote good governance and control corruption to restore decreasing people’s trust in democratic system because of our bigoted political parties. We can fight this challenge only when democratic institutions are strengthened and made vibrant in prosecuting corruption in all forms. Everyone is equal under the law in democracy. But, this noble principle, however, does not apply in Nepal when corruption or organized crime suspects are political party cadres, businessmen, high-profile bureaucrats or prominent politicians.
ALARMING INDICATORS
The Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index-2009 ranks Nepal in the 143rd position. The country is the second-most corrupt in South Asia. Similarly, Global Integrity Report-2009 has rated Nepal’s integrity as “weak”. The World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indictors for 2008 ranked Nepal as a country with a serious governance crisis. In yet another striking revelation, the Oxford University’s research for United Nations Development Program shows around 65 percent Nepali people live on less than $2 a day. Likewise, the Failed State Index of the International Peace Fund puts Nepal in the 26th position. It argues that political instability, bad governance, weak economy, fragile security and deteriorating rule of law are potential indicators of Nepal’s failed state status. These independent projections foresee a frightening situation for this young but besieged republic.
Nepal is indeed a fragile, though literally not a “failed state” yet. Fragile state encounters different challenges to address corruption than in normal development contexts. Weak state capacity hinders development and good governance, which is a pre-requisite to institutionalization of the democratic system. The experiences from countries such as Thailand, Pakistan, Bosnia, Nicaragua, Mozambique and beyond shows that neglecting corruption and bad governance from the outset undermines democracy and people’s trust toward it. As democracy thrives in strong institutions and policy settings, Nepal needs to grow strong and robust institutions for sustaining democracy.
However, a high probability of Nepal becoming a failed state cannot be ruled out if deteriorating rule of law, corruption and bad governance continue. Systemic failure to effectively control corruption and provide good governance to 28 million people may cause the downfall of our democratic system ultimately. The successful examples of democratic leadership worldwide have evidenced that long-term economic growth breeds stronger democratic institutions and make them less vulnerable to setbacks and conflict. Therefore, the focus of political leadership in new Nepal should be to create political stability and good governance for at least a decade to come to materialize the long-sought economic transformation.
A STRONG FLIPSIDE
The middle-class population has been a major strength behind all revolutions around the world. The middle-class people that helped oust autocrats from power once have now resorted back to undemocratic practices or means to shake the foundations of young democracies because of their failure to meet their expectations of a better life, employment opportunities, social security, good governance and effective rule of law.
Political parties in countries such as Nepal see democracy just as a ‘legitimate recourse’ to grab power. This narrow interpretation of democracy in countries from Thailand to Pakistan to the Philippines to Cambodia to Russia to Venezuela not only distorted the true meaning of the word but also alienated the general populace who became disgusted with these so-called democrats who seemed no more interested to the common cause for good governance, security, development, effective services and strong rule of law. Growing disenchantment of the middle-class people with newly-established democracies is due to incapacity of the early leaders of the young democracies to recognize that free societies require strong institutions for democratic consolidation.
Disappointed with the elected autocrats and frustrated with the graft of young democracies, many middle-class activists in developing countries are now even longing for the old days of authoritarian rule. Coups in Mauritania and Niger in Africa were welcomed by the urban middle class, while data from the Asian Barometer surveys shows that many respondents have become disappointed with their democratic systems.
The middle-class people who ran amok in streets in hundreds of thousands during Janaandolan II are now frustrated with the political parties, which have miserably failed to fix things, further the peace process and give momentum to the deadlocked constitution-writing task. When trust in governance is questioned and public confidence in such institutions is hollow, public anger flourishes at the cost of democratic system itself. Political parties are losing their credibility, and gradual decay of their popular trust is detrimental to our democratic transition as well. The Asian Development Bank’s latest report has quantified Nepal’s middle-class population to be around 23 percent or 6.1 million. As this group is easily hit hard by any kind of instability, the flipside of this growing middle-class population is that it may fight against democracy for its failure to ensure them a better future.
In two decades of fragile democracy in Nepal, many institutions created since 1990s have been destroyed. We have destabilized social harmony, ruined bureaucracy, police, judiciary, local bodies and many other key institutions. It would take decades, if not years, for a committed leadership to rebuild these institutions. People pinned high hopes for good governance, corruption control, economic development, better life, strong rule of law, social security after the fall of monarchy but we have been witnessing the turmoil and political infighting only for partisan causes. The history of other young democracies has shown that democratic success in early years can be very fragile due to failure to sustain difficult democratization process.
Things as they unfold now don’t augur well for Nepal. People’s hopes for better governance have been ditched by none other than the political parties who promised prosperity for new Nepal. Nepal is now facing extraordinary political circumstances which need deft handling. The transition Nepal is making from a ‘feudal past to a federal future’ is being marred by a dangerous collusion of conflicting political ideologies, parties’ super-egos and geo-political interests. This is likely to shake the very foundations of our democratization process and may put the spanners in our smooth transition to a federal republic. When an autocracy fails, a despot is solely responsible for the downfall while when a democracy fails, all its actors—political parties, media, civil society, bureaucracy, private sector, citizenry, among others—are equally blamed for the failure. Can we afford to take the blame?
pbhattarai2001@gmail.com
There are ample but painful lessons from other failed states. Freedom House, a US-based International Non-Governmental Organization, in its 2009 report noted declines of electoral democracies to 116, the lowest number since 1995. As Nepal is also in the most difficult transition in history, we must take caution that Nepal doesn’t rollback to any form of undemocratic regime because of our inability to institutionalize strong democratic institutions during transition to federalism.
Nepal is now emerging out from the ashes of the past conflict, and has miles to go before it projects itself as a stable, transparent and prosperous federal democracy in the world arena. Of the many challenges, pervasive corruption, bad governance, deteriorating rule of law and weak state institutions are impediments to Nepal’s successful transition to federal republic. A series of failed prime ministerial elections, deteriorating rule of law, fragile security, two-digit inflation, slumped economy, growing unemployment, rampant corruption, widening poverty, moribund development, rising trade deficit, unregulated market, politicized bureaucracy, poor service delivery, derelict public institutions and fractious politics are enough to choke up Nepal’s democratization process.
Democracy has not been able to deliver development and good governance as expected. Nepal is facing a Herculean challenge to promote good governance and control corruption to restore decreasing people’s trust in democratic system because of our bigoted political parties. We can fight this challenge only when democratic institutions are strengthened and made vibrant in prosecuting corruption in all forms. Everyone is equal under the law in democracy. But, this noble principle, however, does not apply in Nepal when corruption or organized crime suspects are political party cadres, businessmen, high-profile bureaucrats or prominent politicians.
ALARMING INDICATORS
The Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index-2009 ranks Nepal in the 143rd position. The country is the second-most corrupt in South Asia. Similarly, Global Integrity Report-2009 has rated Nepal’s integrity as “weak”. The World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indictors for 2008 ranked Nepal as a country with a serious governance crisis. In yet another striking revelation, the Oxford University’s research for United Nations Development Program shows around 65 percent Nepali people live on less than $2 a day. Likewise, the Failed State Index of the International Peace Fund puts Nepal in the 26th position. It argues that political instability, bad governance, weak economy, fragile security and deteriorating rule of law are potential indicators of Nepal’s failed state status. These independent projections foresee a frightening situation for this young but besieged republic.
Nepal is indeed a fragile, though literally not a “failed state” yet. Fragile state encounters different challenges to address corruption than in normal development contexts. Weak state capacity hinders development and good governance, which is a pre-requisite to institutionalization of the democratic system. The experiences from countries such as Thailand, Pakistan, Bosnia, Nicaragua, Mozambique and beyond shows that neglecting corruption and bad governance from the outset undermines democracy and people’s trust toward it. As democracy thrives in strong institutions and policy settings, Nepal needs to grow strong and robust institutions for sustaining democracy.
However, a high probability of Nepal becoming a failed state cannot be ruled out if deteriorating rule of law, corruption and bad governance continue. Systemic failure to effectively control corruption and provide good governance to 28 million people may cause the downfall of our democratic system ultimately. The successful examples of democratic leadership worldwide have evidenced that long-term economic growth breeds stronger democratic institutions and make them less vulnerable to setbacks and conflict. Therefore, the focus of political leadership in new Nepal should be to create political stability and good governance for at least a decade to come to materialize the long-sought economic transformation.
A STRONG FLIPSIDE
The middle-class population has been a major strength behind all revolutions around the world. The middle-class people that helped oust autocrats from power once have now resorted back to undemocratic practices or means to shake the foundations of young democracies because of their failure to meet their expectations of a better life, employment opportunities, social security, good governance and effective rule of law.
Political parties in countries such as Nepal see democracy just as a ‘legitimate recourse’ to grab power. This narrow interpretation of democracy in countries from Thailand to Pakistan to the Philippines to Cambodia to Russia to Venezuela not only distorted the true meaning of the word but also alienated the general populace who became disgusted with these so-called democrats who seemed no more interested to the common cause for good governance, security, development, effective services and strong rule of law. Growing disenchantment of the middle-class people with newly-established democracies is due to incapacity of the early leaders of the young democracies to recognize that free societies require strong institutions for democratic consolidation.
The experiences from countries such as Thailand, Pakistan, Bosnia, Nicaragua, Mozambique and beyond shows that neglecting corruption and bad governance from the outset undermines democracy and people’s trust toward it.In many countries where democracy has been recently rolled back, the middle class that once promoted political freedom has resorted to extralegal, undemocratic tactics—supposedly to save democracy itself. Many called for a military intervention or a kind of benevolent despotism to restore the rule of law and fight corruption. When former King, Gyanendra Shah, took executive powers on himself, the urban middle-class population welcomed the move expecting that he would put things on track. The hopes soon turned into frustration against him that caused his unopposed dethronement.
Disappointed with the elected autocrats and frustrated with the graft of young democracies, many middle-class activists in developing countries are now even longing for the old days of authoritarian rule. Coups in Mauritania and Niger in Africa were welcomed by the urban middle class, while data from the Asian Barometer surveys shows that many respondents have become disappointed with their democratic systems.
The middle-class people who ran amok in streets in hundreds of thousands during Janaandolan II are now frustrated with the political parties, which have miserably failed to fix things, further the peace process and give momentum to the deadlocked constitution-writing task. When trust in governance is questioned and public confidence in such institutions is hollow, public anger flourishes at the cost of democratic system itself. Political parties are losing their credibility, and gradual decay of their popular trust is detrimental to our democratic transition as well. The Asian Development Bank’s latest report has quantified Nepal’s middle-class population to be around 23 percent or 6.1 million. As this group is easily hit hard by any kind of instability, the flipside of this growing middle-class population is that it may fight against democracy for its failure to ensure them a better future.
In two decades of fragile democracy in Nepal, many institutions created since 1990s have been destroyed. We have destabilized social harmony, ruined bureaucracy, police, judiciary, local bodies and many other key institutions. It would take decades, if not years, for a committed leadership to rebuild these institutions. People pinned high hopes for good governance, corruption control, economic development, better life, strong rule of law, social security after the fall of monarchy but we have been witnessing the turmoil and political infighting only for partisan causes. The history of other young democracies has shown that democratic success in early years can be very fragile due to failure to sustain difficult democratization process.
Things as they unfold now don’t augur well for Nepal. People’s hopes for better governance have been ditched by none other than the political parties who promised prosperity for new Nepal. Nepal is now facing extraordinary political circumstances which need deft handling. The transition Nepal is making from a ‘feudal past to a federal future’ is being marred by a dangerous collusion of conflicting political ideologies, parties’ super-egos and geo-political interests. This is likely to shake the very foundations of our democratization process and may put the spanners in our smooth transition to a federal republic. When an autocracy fails, a despot is solely responsible for the downfall while when a democracy fails, all its actors—political parties, media, civil society, bureaucracy, private sector, citizenry, among others—are equally blamed for the failure. Can we afford to take the blame?
pbhattarai2001@gmail.com
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