By Utpal Raj Misra
KATHMANDU, Jan 6 – The Election Commission egistered Rastriya Prajatantra Party (Nationalist) as the 100th political party last week. From among the 100 political parties registered, not only a layman, but even a political expert finds it hard to remember the names of only a dozen.
Why then are there so many parties and so few are remembered, let alone voted by the public?
The smaller political parties blame media, fund crunch and growing use of muscles and money in politics for the humiliation they often face in elections.
“The media does not acknowledge our programs nor what we say,” says Ram Hari Sharma, a freedom fighter and president of Nepal Praja Parishad, the oldest party in the country.
Definitely things were pretty different when Sharma and a few other bold youth established the first-ever political party to fight the Rana Oligarchy some six decades ago. Then their party had one and only mission: to overthrow the Ranas. Thus, their goal was consistent. But today big political parties are neither consistent in their goals nor are honest towards people and yet media is giving them undue coverage, Sharma says.
He also laments that media is not giving attention to the politics of character. “We believe that character is the most essential thing in democracy.” And it is this “politics without character” that frustrates the small parties.
“After 1990 we lost hold in politics as we were preaching morality as others went after money and power politics”, he adds.
Leela Mani Pokharel, General Secretary of Samyukta Janamorcha Nepal, which has only one seat in the House of Representatives broadly agrees with Sharma’s view. Media attention is presently concentrated only on head-counts in the parliament. The media has, for quite some time, has been erroneously following this principle, he says.
Kuber Sharma, formerly a lawmaker of the ruling Nepali Congress, who dissented from the mother party to form his own Hariyali Nepal Party says,” It is natural for many parties to exist in a democracy and it has its merits and demerits.”
In his opinion the present political culture that feeds heavily on money, muscle and misuse of government authorities is affecting the survival of the smaller political parties. “It is the combination of these elements that affects the outcome of elections.”
Had it not been for principle and morality, which we value most in politics there would be some “heads” to represent us in the parliament, says Ram Hari Sharma. “Since we hold to our moral grounds we don’t go to anyone asking for donations nor anyone gets interested in contributing anything to us as they know we can give nothing in return,” he adds. “The party is running on the contributions made by the party members”, he informs.
Kuber Sharma also thinks that the problems faced by the small political parties ultimately converge to the problem of fund crunch. In his analysis, lack of financial resources lead to lack of manpower which limits the activity of the party and that limits media acknowledgement. Thus, it is difficult for the small parties to put across their views no matter how genuine they may be, he argues. “This is why the public is often misled that the smaller parties are doing nothing.”
He also blames the present Constitution for the plight of the smaller parties.
“Under the present constitution, a party that has obtained only 32 per cent of the popular votes has 113 seats in the parliament and the party with 29 per cent of popular votes has 83 seats. This explains the flaw in our electoral system” he adds.
Sharma argues, it would be therefore pertinent to go for a proportional representation system of governance.
Pokharel too agrees that the proportional representation system would make it possible for better accommodation of various types of ideas and interest groups.
Smaller parties think it is also the absence of provision in the Constitution for election government that affects the outcome of the elections. “There will not be fair and free election unless conducted by an independent election government,” says Ram Hari Sharma.
With or without the election government, elections will not be fair and small parties will be in the receiving end unless the present trend of Criminalization of politics is contained, says Pokharel.