NEPAL: ELECTION PROCESS FLAWED, MAOISTS BENEFIT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KATHMANDU 000825 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/23/2017 TAGS: PGOV PTER KDEM NP SUBJECT: NEPAL: ELECTION PROCESS FLAWED, MAOISTS BENEFIT REF: KATHMANDU 762 Classified By: Ambassador James F. Moriarty. Reasons 1.4 (b/d). Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) In an April 20 meeting with the Ambassador, Dominic Cardy, Country Director for the National Democratic Institute (NDI),and Peter Erben, Country Director for IFES, told the Ambassador that the election process thus far had been flawed -- to the Maoists' advantage. The new constituencies the Constituency Commission had delineated had not been formed through a collaborative process, and would likely not be accepted as legitimate. The Ambassador recounted his recent trip to Morang and Udayapur, in southeastern Nepal, where people had raised the same concerns. A Constituent Assembly election was needed soon as a way to call the Maoist bluff on their alleged desire for free and fair elections. Both Cardy and Erben thought that a referendum on the monarchy was a bad idea and worried that it could give the Maoists the upper hand. Election Process Flawed -------------- ¶2. (C) NDI Country Director Dominic Cardy and IFES Country Director Peter Erben told the Ambassador April 20 that the election process coming into shape in NEPAL was flawed. Erben stated that the proportional election system the Cabinet had proposed to the State Affairs Committee of the Interim Parliament was "fundamentally undemocratic." According to the Cabinet's proposal, the parties would prepare candidate lists in random order, and only after the election would they decide who would fill the seats the parties won based on their share of the vote. In this situation, the voters would not know for whom they were voting. Cardy emphasized that the elitist nature of Nepal's political parties would be accentuated because the leaders of the parties would have complete control over who made it into the Constituent Assembly, allowing them to reward loyalty and punish independence. Second, under the proposed law the parties would have to pick candidates that met a number of predetermined quotas from categories listed in the Interim Constitution; the quotas or percentages had not yet been decided. Candidates could fill more than one quota. For instance, a Madhesi dalit woman would fill three quotas for the party, allowing them to fill the remaining positions with the same party loyalists that had always been in power. 
Finally, the State Affairs Committee, which was preparing the bill for presentation in the Interim Parliament, had not consulted with the marginalized groups who would be affected by the new bill. In other words, the pattern of leaders making decisions in private through an opaque process, which had characterized Nepal's politics since the beginning of multi-party democracy in 1990, continued. Process Flawed: Constituency Delineation -------------- ¶3. (C) Erben and Cardy agreed that another problem was the recent declaration of new electoral constituencies by the Electoral Constituency Delineation Commission. Although the new constituencies were proportionally correct according to the 2001 census, key groups, such as the Madhesi People's Rights Forum (MPRF),were unhappy with the newly drawn constituencies. Erben stated that someone would always be unhappy with constituencies, because there was always a political side to the drawing of new constituencies. However, the public had not been consulted in the process of creating the new constituencies, and that could make the entire exercise meaningless. Ram Chandra Poudel, Minister for Peace and Reconstruction, had already stated publicly that he believed the new constituencies would be thrown out. The MPRF was demanding a new census before any election to ensure that the new constituencies reflected the current population of the districts. All of these problems, Erben complained, would cause further delays in the election process. The Ambassador recounted his recent trip to Morang and Udayapur, in southeastern Nepal, where he had heard the KATHMANDU 00000825 002 OF 003 same complaints. Voter Registration Lists as Constituency Basis? -------------- -- ¶4. (C) The Ambassador asked whether voter registration lists could be used as a basis for setting new constituencies. Erben acknowledged that it would be possible to use voter registration lists, but pointed out that to do so could increase fraud. To date, the voter registration process had been relatively fair and fraud-free. Erben worried that, if the Government of NEPAL (GON) began to use voter registration numbers to set constituency boundaries, there would be more double-registration and fraudulent registration to increase the representation for a given district. Constituent Assembly Election: Need to Set a Date -------------- -------------- ¶5. (C) Erben and Cardy stated that the GON needed to set a firm date for a rescheduled Constituent Assembly election. By not picking a date and simply putting the election off indefinitely, the GON had given the upper hand to the Maoists, who did not appear to want an election anyway. The Maoists had privately been calling for the election to be put off until April 2008, but had not been doing anything that would help an election take place. The Ambassador agreed that an election needed to take place within the year, but was unsure about how to get the GON excited about it. He worried that the international community, including the UN, would not hold the Maoists accountable for their actions in the run-up to the Constituent Assembly election. Erben believed that holding an election would begin to hold the Maoists accountable for their actions because they would either have to play fair, and get a low percentage of votes, or they would play rough, and their reputation would be tarnished. The Ambassador once again reminded Erben that the Maoists would not care if their reputation were tarnished, as long as they did well in an election. The other parties and the international community needed to call them out for their atrocities and stress that too many violations would result in an invalid election. Referendum on the King: Bad Idea -------------- ¶6. (C) Both Cardy and Erben stated that a referendum to decide the fate of the monarchy was a bad idea. Cardy believed that a referendum would advantage the Maoists because, no matter the outcome, the Maoist party would come out smelling like roses. If the monarchy remained intact after an election, the Maoists still would have had a chance to test the Young Communist League's (YCL's) ability to intimidate voters through violence and intimidation -- a "dress rehearsal" for the Constituent Assembly election. If the monarchy were abolished through a referendum, the Maoists would get what they wanted and would be a step closer to power. The Ambassador responded that the Maoists could be in a weaker position after a referendum because their main issue would be gone and, if they continued to use violence and intimidation, then the NEPAL Army might intervene to stop them. Cardy disagreed, saying that the Maoists wanted a clear left/right fight, and a referendum would give that to them. If the other leftist parties joined with them in a campaign against the monarchy, and the Nepali Congress supported monarchy, or split on the issue, then the Maoists could further divide the political parties, making it easier for them to come to power. Erben worried that the Maoists had set themselves up beautifully by demanding an immediate election to the Constituent Assembly. Now that the GON had postponed the election date, the Maoists could demand some concession in return. This concession could either be a referendum on the monarchy, or the ability to remove the monarchy through a two-thirds vote of the Interim Parliament. The Ambassador stated that it seemed they would get the constitutional amendment authorizing removal of the monarchy by a two-thirds vote as a concession. Maoists Working the Process -------------- KATHMANDU 00000825 003 OF 003 ¶7. (C) Cardy stated that Maoist behavior had not changed, and that the Maoists had the "shield of the political parties" to hide behind. Erben claimed that the Maoists continued to act under the implicit protection of the international community. The international community, except for the U.S., had consistently refused to hold the Maoists accountable for their actions and needed to begin to do so. The Ambassador agreed, but worried that the international community did not seem to be moving in that direction very quickly. Cardy wondered out loud what the Maoists would do in the next six months in Nepal, and speculated that they might try a strong push for power in Kathmandu, which could provoke the NEPAL Army into action. The Maoists' reported plan to take 17,000 People's Liberation Army (PLA) combatants out of the cantonments and "decommission" them in advance of the launch of the UN's verification of Maoist "combatants" seemed like a move to get newly trained cadre out of the camps and into the YCL. Cardy suspected many of the current YCL cadre were seasoned PLA members who had never entered the cantonments in the first place. Comment -------------- ¶8. (C) The status of the election in NEPAL is still up in the air. No one in the Government of NEPAL is taking the initiative needed to set a new date, draft and pass the necessary election laws, provide security across the country, or bring marginalized groups into the process -- all actions that will be necessary if the election in NEPAL is to succeed. The international community needs to get on the same page and begin to push the political parties to do what is needed, including holding the Maoists accountable for their actions. It is time to strip the Maoists of the peace-process-based impunity once and for all. The GON cannot crack down on other groups, such as the MPRF, and still give the Maoists a pass. There are many obstacles to a free and fair election in Nepal, but by continuing to monitor the situation on the ground in the run-up to the election, we can support Nepal's slow-growing democracy and make sure it does not die on the vine. MORIARTY