We’re gonna make them a promise we can’t keep

Make that several promises. We will bring you federalism. We will bring about social inclusion. We will write you a constitution. We will deliver you the right to elect a government. There were other promises too – those pertaining to greater economic growth or an improvement in infrastructure for instance, but let’s leave those for another day.

Four years ago on 28 May 2008, Nepal’s Constituent Assembly met for the first time and promptly abolished the Monarchy and declared Nepal a Republic. Its mandate was to finish writing a new constitution in two years. It did not come close.

Writing a constitution for Nepal was never going to be an easy task, particularly considering a populace split along ethnic, linguistic, geographic, social and economic lines, among others. Cleavages in Nepali society have always run deep, but traditional power structures have only been challenged in recent years, owing primarily to the Maoists and the political parties of the Madhes which have picked up the cause of several marginalised groups of people. As a result, pretty much for the first time, the various divides in Nepalese society came to the fore in the corridors of power. The Congress and the UML, on the other hand, have sought to preserve traditional power structures which are largely beneficial to their interests.

That the political parties did not come to an agreement on the restructuring of the state is not very surprising. However, had they begun discussing federalism three years ago instead of three months ago, could they have reached an agreement? Perhaps.

But did they have the urgency to do so? Perhaps not.

This is why I think, not. The elected Constituent Assembly was also to act as an interim legislature for two years. What this meant was that the same people who were to write the constitution were also to govern the country. This meant a) too much responsibility on the shoulders of one organ of the state, and b) too much authority vested in one body. The former ensured very little good came out of the Assembly in terms of real policy and the latter directly led to a struggle to control the Assembly.

It is the latter which ultimately led to a failure of this magnitude. The leading political figures in the country (across the political spectrum), who had been elected and given a mandate to write a constitution for the country were more interested in controlling the Assembly, and by extension the government. That no political party had a clear majority in the assembly only exacerbated the problem.

The leaders of the key political parties, instead of striving to write a constitution in the best interests of the country, were attempting to write a constitution that would play to the gallery and appease their vote banks. The result was a politically charged Constituent Assembly, members of which were not willing to work together towards a common cause. There was no common goal and each party had its own objectives. Essentially, what should have been the task of technocrats was left to the politicians, while the technocrats themselves were reduced to sitting on toothless constitutional advisory committees.

Moreover, even the failure to write a constitution within the stipulated timeframe was not much of a concern for the key leaders of the political parties. Since the constituent assembly was also acting as the interim legislature, an extension of the assembly’s term meant an automatic extension of the terms of the elected politicians. It did not just stop at that – through various power sharing agreements, supposed “unity” governments, or just as a result of a leadership vacuum, the Constituent Assembly managed to give us five prime ministers from three key political parties over four years. Even as months passed by and common Nepali folk grew increasingly impatient, key political leaders continued bickering. Unfortunately, they bickered only over ministerial portfolios and not the constitution. At least not until it was too late.

Either advertently or otherwise, the whole exercise of having the same 601-strong body serve as a Constituent Assembly as well as an interim legislature backfired spectacularly. By the end of the four years, the Constituent Assembly had been reduced to an exclusive club, one which had blackballed the remainder of the Nepali population.