MAOIST-LED GOVERNMENT AFTER 100 DAYS: NEW NEPAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 KATHMANDU 001265 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/05/2018 TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER EAID ECON ELAB IN CH NP SUBJECT: MAOIST-LED GOVERNMENT AFTER 100 DAYS: NEW NEPAL LOOKS LIKE OLD NEPAL REF: A. NEW DELHI 2553 ¶B. STATE 106098 ¶C. KATHMANDU 1110 ¶D. KATHMANDU 1245 ¶E. KATHMANDU 1162 ¶F. KATHMANDU 1243 Classified By: Ambassador Nancy J. Powell. Reasons 1.4 (b/d) Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) With few exceptions, Nepal's Maoist-led government has done little in the roughly 100 days since the coalition's formation in August to transform Nepal. From the cabinet, to foreign policy, the peace process, human rights and law and order, the Terai and the economy, the government's record is mixed at best -- and frequently poor. The other parties, including the opposition Nepali Congress, share the blame for the lack of progress. The new government can claim to have established good working relations with the country's most important neighbors, donors, and the United Nations. It has pushed its budget through the Parliament. But the peace process is badly stuck with no movement on the crucial issue of integration of Maoist combatants. The illegal activities of the Maoist Young Communist League continue. Meanwhile, six months after it was formed, the Constituent Assembly has passed almost no legislation, has not formed a single committee, and has yet to start drafting a new constitution. The Nepali public, for the most part, is also still looking for tangible improvements in their lives. New Government Formed -------------- ¶2. (U) After his swearing-in as Prime Minister by President Ram Baran Yadav on August 18, Communist Party of Nepal - Maoist (CPN-M) chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal (aka Prachanda) moved relatively quickly to form his coalition. On August 21, the CPN-M, the CPN - United Marxist Leninist (UML) and the Madhesi People's Rights Forum (MPRF) adopted a common minimum program. By the end of August, Prime Minister Dahal put in place a 24-member, six-party cabinet. The 11 Maoists included the Ministers of Finance, Defense, Information, Law, Land, Tourism, Peace and Labor. UML leader Bamdev Gautam was named the sole Deputy Prime Minister -- and Home Minister. The water, industry and local development (government) ministries were assigned to three of the other five UML ministers. The cabinet got four MPRF ministers, including MPRF President Upendra Yadav as Foreign Minister. Physical planning, agriculture and education also went to the MPRF. Three minor parties -- the Terai-based Sadbhavana Party, the leftist People's Front Nepal and CPN - United -- contributed one minister (Commerce, Health and the Environment) each. Cabinet Improved, But Still Challenged -------------- ¶3. (C) PM Dahal's cabinet is more inclusive than previous Nepali cabinets -- more women than all but one, more Madhesis and indigenous nationalities (janajati),although no Dalits. When Maoist Land Minister Matrika Yadav openly challenged the PM (and the Deputy PM) in September, Dahal forced him to resign. According to Kul Bhurtel, Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister, and a former Nepali Congress (NC) partisan, interim Prime Minister G.P. Koirala (NC) went to the office only a handful of times during his 28 months as PM. Koirala worked out of his residence, usually for only several hours a day because of his poor health. Cabinet meetings were a rare event and a small circle of advisers limited others' access to him. By contrast, the Maoist PM is in the office nearly every day, all day, meeting people, and holds cabinet sessions every week he is in Kathmandu. Nevertheless, inter and intra-party rivalries have hobbled this government as they did past coalitions. On December 4, KATHMANDU 00001265 002 OF 004 the government announced the formation of a high-level coordination committee of the six parties to improve the government's functioning. (Comment: Prior governments have employed this mechanism, with mixed success.) Foreign Relations Prioritized -------------- ¶4. (C) Within the first 100 days, PM Dahal made two trips to India: an official visit with large official and business delegations in September (Ref A) and a trip back to New Delhi for the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) summit in November. Less than a week after taking office, PM Dahal flew to China to attend the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. (Comment: Although the Government of India seemed unhappy that, contrary to tradition, India was not his first destination, Dahal's subsequent public remarks about Nepal's special relationship with India smoothed ruffled feathers.) By comparison, Koirala made a total of two trips to India during his time as interim PM, and none to China. At the end of September, the Maoist chief attended the UN General Assembly in New York. He shook hands briefly with President Bush at the reception for heads of delegation and met the Assistant Secretaries of State for South and Central Asia and for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (Ref B). His remarks at the high-level event on the Millennium Development Goals and his speech to the General Assembly a day later were well-received. He also spoke with a number of other world leaders, including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. (By comparison, the then Foreign Minister -- K.P. Oli in 2006 and Sahana Pradhan in 2007 -- represented Nepal at the UNGA while Koirala was PM.) Foreign Minister Yadav was in New Delhi twice. In addition, he and Finance Minister Baburam Bhattarai were both in the U.S. in September/October: Yadav for UNGA and meetings in Washington and Bhattarai for the fall World Bank/International Monetary Fund meeting in Washington. Foreign Visitors Polish Government Image -------------- ¶5. (SBU) Senior visitors also served to burnish the new government's foreign policy standing. Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee reaffirmed that India would support Nepal's development in a November 24-26 visit to Kathmandu, his first since December 2007. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi's December 2-4 stay was the first by a Chinese FM since March 2005. The British Minister for Economic Development and the Danish Foreign Minister reaffirmed their support for Nepal's development in late November stops. UN Secretary General Ban, who arrived at the end of October, did the same. He was the first UN Secretary General to visit Nepal since Kofi Annan in 2001. Statements by senior leaders of the Asian Development Bank and World Bank comments since August likewise reaffirmed support for the new Maoist-led government. (Comment: The visits and statements partially neutralized those domestic critics who claimed the new government lacked international legitimacy.) Ambitious Budget Passed; Appointments Little Different -------------- -------------- ¶6. (C) After some minor adjustments to accommodate issues raised by opposition NC Members of Parliament (MPs) and others, Finance Minister Bhattarai successfully persuaded the Constituent Assembly (CA) on November 11 to pass his ambitious USD 3.2 billion 2008-2009 budget tabled in mid-September (Ref C). The budget was 40 percent higher than the previous budget and contained a number of large populist programs. It envisioned a 30 percent increase in revenue and a more than 100 percent increase in foreign grants. Local experts doubted the new government's ability to implement many of its planned projects, even if the funds were forthcoming. Language in the budget, and in the government's KATHMANDU 00001265 003 OF 004 annual policy and program statement that preceded it, also raised concerns within the business community about an excessive role for the state in the economy. Transparency about the use of funds was another issue. Implementation was still up in the air as the 100 days drew to a close. Aside from giving individual ministers a little more leeway in making appointments to agencies under their respective ministries, the CPN-M engaged in much the same cronyism and nepotism as previous governments (Ref D). Peace Process Stuck -------------- ¶7. (C) Despite considerable urging by the international community, there was virtually no forward movement during the Maoists' first three months in office on the gamut of peace process issues. The government announced the creation of a five-member Special (146) Committee on rehabilitation and integration of Maoist combatants on the eve of Secretary General Ban's arrival, with two CPN-M members and one each from the UML and the NC. But more than a month later, the committee has yet to meet because of a sharp disagreement with the NC over the terms of reference and the composition of the committee. Statements by former PM Koirala, and by others such as Foreign Minister Yadav, at times called into doubt whether some of the major parties still supported integration at all. Statements by Maoist leaders, such as People's Liberation Army chief Nanda Kishor Pun (aka Pasang), insisting that all 19,000 plus combatants would have to be integrated into the security forces did not help. (Comment: The situation seems sadly reminiscent of the summer 2007 creation by the interim government of a 146 Committee which met only once.) Cabinet approval in mid-November of a much improved bill on a disappearances commission is one of the few bright spots. Constituent Assembly Not Yet Up and Running -------------- ¶8. (C) Other than the expenditure (budget) bill on November 11 and the revenue (tax) bill three days later, the Assembly passed no other legislation after August 18, and practically none before it. (Note: The CA abolished the monarchy at its first sitting on May 28 and adopted two constitutional amendments -- one immediately and one in July. End note.) Haggling over the rules to govern an unusually large 601-member parliament with an unprecedented 25 parties and a dual constitution-drafting and legislative role was the reason MPs often cited for the CA's poor performance. Observers, however, attributed part of the inordinate and inexcusable 6-month delay in the Assembly and its committees becoming operational to a failure of leadership by the Maoists as the largest party. Tensions among the major parties and excessive demands by the minor parties were also to blame. As of early December, the Assembly had yet to start drafting the new constitution. Nepali Public Still Waiting -------------- ¶9. (C) Meanwhile, the Nepali public is still waiting three and a half months after this new government took office for concrete improvements in their lives. Law and order continues to be poor, especially in the eastern and central Terai. Impunity is still the rule. The three-person team headed by Peace Minister Janardan Sharma established at the beginning of October to talk with the Madhesi militant groups (Ref E) has made no apparent progress. The illegal activities of the Maoist Young Communist League (YCL) continue with violent and at times deadly clashes between the YCL and the UML's Youth Force occurring on a regular basis. Power outages ("loadshedding") increased to 45 hours a week effective December 3 and transportation stoppages ("bandhs") remain common. There are few signs that this government is any better at delivering development, including desperately KATHMANDU 00001265 004 OF 004 needed infrastructure. And rates of unemployment (and underemployment) continue to be depressingly high. The government did take advantage of the dramatic fall in world petroleum prices to lower petroleum product prices incrementally and boost supplies. Labor Unrest Bodes Ill for Economy -------------- ¶10. (C) PM Dahal was quick to court the business community after the CPN-M won a plurality in the CA election in April, but many of the steps his party has taken in government have frightened business leaders. Although Dahal and Finance Minister Bhattarai have repeatedly claimed that they wanted to see an increase in investment, foreign and domestic, their failure to rein in militant labor unions has given potential investors little confidence. (Comment: In late November, Dahal did order Maoist unions which had shut down the mountain resort town of Nagarkot for one day to go back to work.) During PM Dahal's visit to New Delhi in September, the PM was put in the awkward position of explaining why Maoist labor agitation had shut down Dabur Nepal, the largest foreign (Indian) company in Nepal. Mukherjee raised this same issue during his visit at the end of November. A Maoist-affiliated union participated in illegally closing two of Coca-Cola's bottling plants from December 1-3, and in violently confronting Colgate-Palmolive executives after the company was sold to local entrepreneurs in late November. (Ref F) Maoist extortion of businesses continues (although in parts of the Terai it is the militant Madhesi groups which are the worst offenders) and aspects of the budget, including the GON's plan to revive moribund state industries, betray a troubling lack of economic understanding. In addition, several commentators have noted that the increase in the minimum wage, which the government has implemented poorly, will result in a decrease in employment. Comment -------------- ¶11. (C) Changing the way Nepal's government functions was never going to be easy, especially for a party which had fought a communist revolution for a decade. In public comments on November 28, Prime Minister Dahal reportedly admitted: "I think fighting the People's War was easier than overcoming the (traditional) nexus" within the civil administration. The new Maoist-led government has struggled in its first months in office to balance its revolutionary ideals with the practical aspects of foreign relations, Nepal's dependence on foreign assistance, and the difficulties of running a coalition government in one of the world's least developed countries. The two weeks of contentious CPN-M Central Committee and national cadre meetings in late November culminating in the adoption of the goal of making Nepal "a people's federal democratic national republic" highlighted the party's internal tensions. The former insurgents have their own transformation to undergo, and they risk losing the good will of the international community and, more crucially, the Nepali public if they continue to respect the trappings of democracy, but not its essential rights and obligations. That said, the divisions within the other major political parties, notably the Nepali Congress, seem likely to prevent those parties from offering any reasonable alternative any time soon. POWELL