Mt Everest and 6 Other Key Challenges Facing Nepal’s New Govt
The change of government is unlikely to ease the political instability that has plagued Nepal for years.
advertisement
Another coalition government has taken over in Nepal, where the Parliament elected former communist rebel leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal popularly known as “Prachanda” as prime minister on Wednesday.
The change is unlikely to ease the political instability that has plagued Nepal for years. A look at six main challenges facing the tiny South Asian nation, home to the world’s tallest mountains:
Short-Lived Governments
The new government led by Dahal is the ninth in the past 10 years. It is also the 24th government in the last 26 years. Most have been coalition governments, as squabbling over who gets to be prime minister or key ministerial portfolios have often resulted in a collapse of partnerships.
A single political party has been unable to capture a majority of seats in parliamentary elections, forcing it to form a coalition with the second biggest vote getter.
The main partners in the last government were the two largest communist parties, but they failed to overcome the differences between them.
New Constitution and Ethnic Trouble
After the monarchy was abolished, political parties and Maoists attempted to draft a new constitution that would guarantee citizens’ rights and those of marginalized groups. However, it took political parties seven years to complete the task.
The first Constituent Assembly was elected in 2008 with a two-year deadline, but was disbanded after four years. The second assembly, elected in 2013, managed to finish the job in September 2015, but the constitution was rejected by ethnic groups in southern Nepal.
More than 50 people were killed in the protests, which ended in February without meeting the group’s key demands— more land in the new federal state assigned to them by the new constitution. Other smaller ethnic groups also demanded their own separate states.
Fragile Democracy
Street protests in 1990 forced King Birendra to give up the Panchayat system, where political parties were outlawed and the king was in full control of the rubber stamp government and parliament.
After multi-party democracy was restored, political parties competed for power, position and money. Corruption was ever-increasing and it tainted political parties.
When the Maoist rebels began fighting the government, King Gyanendra seized absolute power in 2004, jailing politicians, curbing fundamental rights and putting the army in charge.
Maoist Communist Insurgency
The Maoists began their insurgency in 1996 by attacking a small police station in a mountain village armed with just two old guns.
By the time the rebels put their arms down in 2006, the fighting had spread to much of Nepal, leaving more than 17,000 dead and hundreds missing.
Although the Maoists entered a UN-monitored peace deal and joined mainstream politics, and in 2008 their popularity suffered as leaders like Dahal, who once walked village to village, eating simple food, moved to mansions in Kathmandu, driving around in expensive cars. They are believed to have accumulated huge wealth for their families.
Slow Recuperation from a Devastating Earthquake
The earthquake and its aftershocks on 25 April, 2015 killed nearly 9,000 people and damaged 1 million buildings.
Though the government and donors were quick to distribute plastic sheets, tents and food, reconstruction has been slow and nearly 4 million people are still homeless.
It took nearly a year for the government to form the earthquake reconstruction authority and it managed to give the first grant installments to only a few thousand families.
Foreign donors have pledged $4.1 billion in aid, but only half was made available. Nepal says it needs $7.9 billion over the next five years.
Continuing Energy and Water Shortages
Even though Nepal has several mountain rivers that can be used to produce electricity from hydropower plants, it continues to face huge power shortages.
Consumers face up to 12 hours of daily rolling outages. It was not possible to build new plants during the communist insurgency and only a few have been built since then.
Tap water for Kathmandu’s 3 million people is available only two hours a week on average.
(This article has been edited for length and published in an arrangement with AP)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)