We are having raging debates on monarchy or republic. And maybe a year back i would also have been one of those who are advocating for republic, secularism, federalism and many of the changes brought on by the new constitution. However my confidence in this system was challenged in this election. As RSP rose out of nowhere there was a proper smear campaign against their leader Rabi Lamichanne. They even went on to take his citizenship and made him redo the whole election. It made me realize how much of the media was under control of these major parties, many of the state institutions had come under their influence and finally what length they could go to target anyone coming from outside the circle. We are essentially living in a dictatorship of 3 people. The party is the party adhaksya, nothing else. And there are just 3 realistic candidates who share terms. These elections, they aren’t even needed, we could just let the 3 decide who should be PM next.
The election system itself is made to favor the 3 major parties. Infact its not even 3, its just a 2 horse race. Only UML and congress are realistically in the race. 2084 is just Maobadi vs RSP for 3rd place. The kind of organizational structure and reach that is present in UML/Congress is not present in any other party and this is simply because they have been here for decades. And they have built the system to exactly suit their organization. A system where they will not lose. A new alternative cannot just come and win. They will neither have the organization robustness, nor the economic means to compete with the big two. On top of that, add the influence these parties have made in state institutions. They will abuse state resources to win without hesitation.
With all this in mind, one has to ask how did we get here? How did a constitution that was supposedly written by us the people be so favorable to organized political institution? Well the truth is, we didnt write this constitution. The organized political institutions did. The constituent assebly was no different that our parliament today. It favored the traditional organized party institution. 40% party loyalist. 60% first past the post. A majority of our votes wasted. How? First pass the post means that the candidate with the highest votes wins. But the most votes will be cast to other candidates (2nd 3rd 4th…) .And they wrote a constitution that would preserve their power, like any organized institution would. I dont have any issues till here, as realistically we cant directly vote for everything. But at least the major changes like Secularism, Federalism, Republic and Representative parliamentary democracy that were very debated even back then should have been endorsed by direct election, the only true form of democracy. But instead they shadily made a 2/3 majority, even using the earthquake as a cover to quickly finish the process.
And now i dont see the point of this system. Things will never change. I dont buy into this narrative that my vote will change anything in 84. No it wont. Congress and UML will still be the top 2. RSP will be lucky if they get 3. Not sure what Maobadis game plan is, but they cant do any worse either as they only won in their core areas, areas they will not lose in this generation unless things go really bad for them. How am i to buy the fact that 84 will be different.
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View on r/Nepal by Perfect_Strain1135
It doesn’t…yea democracy ma 3 jana huncha Ani monarchy ma 1 jana
had this same conversation with my friend today, the conclusion was “its next to impossible for anyone to win in 2084 election except Congress and UML”.
It’s not just your vote that counts. Your vote counts but it’s worth jack. Your effort in the democratic process matters. You putting in effort and campaigning for a candidate is worth a lot more than your vote. The amount of time you give furthering an ideology is important. Democracy enables you yo partake in the political process. If you think just voting is enough, then tough luck buddy.
Did your vote ever count ….