Nepal's Local Officials Stay Home as PM Allows

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KATHMANDU 001387

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

LONDON FOR POL/RIEDEL

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV ASEC PTER PREL PINR NP GON
SUBJECT: Nepal's Local Officials Stay Home as PM Allows
Terms to Lapse



1. (SBU) Summary. Nepal's government allowed the terms of
local-level elected officials to lapse on July 16, a move
affecting around 200,000 village-, municipality- and
district-level politicians. Civil servants reportedly
will be tasked with performing their functions. The terms
expired after local elections slated for this spring were
postponed for security reasons and the Election Commission
disallowed the ruling party from appointing its cadres to
the offices. The main opposition party, which controls a
majority of the local bodies, blasted the move as a
politically motivated tactic to ensure ruling party
success in the upcoming national elections. Observers
believe that in many areas the local bodies were already
barely functioning due to security problems and central
government neglect. The move sends mixed signals and will
make it difficult to implement some grassroots development
programs. The action is legal under Nepal's Constitution.
End Summary.

Local Officials' Terms Allowed to Lapse
--------------


2. (SBU) Nepal's government declined to extend the terms
of locally-elected officials, all of which expired at
midnight July 16. These include office holders in Nepal's
75 District Development Committees (DDCs),58
municipalities and 3913 Village Development Committees
(VDCs). According to the National Election Commission,
altogether 189,134 elected officials were affected; the
Ministry of Local Development put the number at over
223,000. [Note: The bulk of these serve at the VDC
level. Each VDC elects a total of 47 individuals,
including a VDC Chairman and Vice-Chairman. VDCs are
divided into nine wards, each of which elects a Ward
Chairman plus four members. End Note.] Local elections,
slated for earlier this year, were postponed due to
security problems related to the ongoing Maoist
insurgency. By law, the elections can be postponed for
only one year and thus must be held no later than July,

2003.

Ruling Party Stopped from Appointing New Local Leaders
-------------- --------------


3. (SBU) The Prime Minister Deuba-led interim government
had wanted to appoint its own candidates to serve during a
one-year extension of local-body tenures, but backed off
after the National Election Commission indicated that it
would disapprove such a move. Donors have not been
pleased with the PM's decision to let the local bodies
lapse; the British development agency expressed "concern,"
while the World Bank's Kathmandu office sent a letter to
the Prime Minister asking him to consider not suspending
the bodies.

Government Confident: Can Still Deliver Goods
-------------- -


4. (SBU) Ministry of Local Development Joint Secretary
Ganga Datta Wawasti told us on July 17 that although the
tenures of local officials had ended and could not be
reinstated, the government had not yet designed specific
mechanisms for doing the work performed by local bodies.
These duties include registering births and deaths,
collecting taxes, and providing letters needed to acquire
citizenship certificates and other official documents from
the central government. Wawasti was confident that the
bureaucracy could perform these functions, however.

This Year Clear, Planning for Next Year a Problem
-------------- --------------


5. (SBU) The coming year's budgets and programs have
already been approved for most jurisdictions, he added,
and their implementation would not cause a problem. The
crunch would come when the time came to formulate budgets
and programs for the following year. This planning
process would present "a big problem," said Wawasti.
[Note: The major role of VDCs is to administer village-
level development activities. End Note.]

No Steps Yet to Combine Elections
--------------


6. (SBU) Wawasti admitted the possibility that local
elections could be held concurrently with national
elections, which are planned not later than November 13,
but added that the government was not yet considering that
option. To stage a combined election would require many
more resources, Wawasti continued. For example, three
ballots would be needed--one each for for ward, VDC (or
municipality) and Parliamentary representatives--and many
more polling places would be required. Moreover, the
accounting system used in local elections is significantly
different from that used in national polls. All things
considered, however, a combined election likely would be
more economical provided that security problems did not
inflate the budget, Wawasti concluded.
Current Regulations Sufficient
--------------


7. (SBU) Wawasti dismissed as erroneous press reports that
the government plans to issue an ordinance allowing
bureaucrats to perform all the duties of the elected
officials they are to stand in for. Refuting claims that
some powers wielded by local officials cannot be
transferred without a new law, Wawasti said that existing
law gave the government authority to decide on alternative
local administrative mechanisms and implement them through
regulations.

Opposition Party Angered By Move
--------------


8. (SBU) The decision to dissolve the local bodies was
politically motivated, complained the main opposition
party, the Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist
Leninist (CPN-UML). [Note: CPN-UML controls a majority
of the local-level bodies, including about 2300 VDCs, 44
municipalities and 51 DDCs. End Note.] Jhala Nath
Khanal, head of the CPN-UML's international relations
department, told us that his party was "very unhappy" with
the move. Khanal claimed that both the Prime Minister and
Home Minister had told him that because the last local
elections had been held during the tenure of CPN-UML
leader Bamdev Gautam as Home Minister, local bodies were
being dismantled in advance of this year's national
election. The Election Commission's Code of Conduct was
the only thing that prevented the ruling Nepali Congress
Party (NCP) from putting its local cadres in control of
these jurisdictions, Khanal alleged.


9. (SBU) According to the constitution and relevant laws,
Khanal said, the government could extend the terms of
local officials for up to one year. It could also call
new local elections to fill the positions. To do either
would have been acceptable to the CPN-UML. Dueba's
decision to disband these bodies will create many problems
of local governance, Khanal believes, and will also likely
work against the PM in the long run. Deuba should now be
consolidating his power, but instead he has opened doors
that will allow his opponents to gain ground.

Local Bodies Were Already On the Ropes
--------------


10. (SBU) That the political left dominated most local
bodies was the prime reason behind the government
decision, the editor of Nepal's official English-language
daily told us. The editor was reserving judgement on the
move, noting that in some areas local bodies had already
ceased functioning due to the deteriorating security
situation. He planned to wait for a few days to see how
civil servants performed in their new roles.


11. (SBU) Other contacts confirmed that local bodies were
already barely functioning. One journalist who travels
frequently to remote areas noted that central government
representatives have already deserted many of the places
he visited. Without the locally-elected representatives,
there will be no government at all, he stated. Another
embassy contact noted that nearly three-fourths of VDCs
were already without Secretaries, the civil-service
officials who are assigned to work with VDCs and who have
been tapped to fill the roles of elected VDC Chairman. In
most areas the VDC Secretaries left their posts long ago
due either to fear or to conflicts with local people; in
others, the posts were simply never filled.

Comment
--------------


12. (SBU) While constitutional, the government's decision
to dissolve local bodies sends mixed signals. Efforts to
nudge Nepal toward a more decentralized government-led
effort to address the root causes of the violent Maoist
insurgency have begun to make headway. But an already
over-stretched, under-financed bureaucracy--struggling to
overcome traditional corruption and inertia--will find it
hard to move on key development and governance initiatives
in a rural Nepal with which it has only a passing, distant
familiarity and no institutional links. Much will depend
on how long the central government allows the local
positions to lie vacant before holding local elections.

MALINOWSKI