People's Review Weekly

When the system fails

- By Our Political Analyst

On Tuesday, April 9, we saw a human sea in Kathmandu. This was the crowd of those people who are against the present system— secularism, federalism, and republican­ism.

The Rastriya Prajatantr­a Party (RPP), a political party which is against the present system, organized the agitation with the slogan, “Change the system; save the nation”. The entire day, Kathmandu traffic was disturbed. The demonstrat­ors broke the security zone announced by the government and attempted to enter Singhadurw­ar, the federal government’s secretaria­t. Around two dozen of agitators were wounded after the police used force—tear gas, water cannons, and cans—to control the situation. On February 21, the party had submitted a 40-point demand to Prime Minister Pushpakama­l Dahal. The demands were related to the burning issues faced by the commoners, the country’s economic policy, foreign

policy, good governance, end of corruption and investigat­ing the source of property earned by the political class since 1990, among others.

The major demand was to end the present political system with secularism, federalism, and republican­ism by replacing it with a Hindu kingdom and a unilateral political system by removing the federal structures and giving total power to the local bodies.

When the government didn’t respond to the memorandum submitted by RPP, the party launched the

demonstrat­ion and said that it would continue until the fulfilment of their demands.

Moreover, RPP chairman Rajendra Lingden, after the use of massive force to suppress the voice of the demonstrat­ors on Tuesday, further added one demand, the resignatio­n of Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane.

System failure:

It seems the main task of the Prime Minister is always to take a defensive stance to save the government. After the general elections in November 2022, Prime Minister Pushpakama­l

Dahal is changing the alliance partners and for the third time, Dahal has faced the vote of confidence motion. Along with a change in the central government, all the seven provinces have been jolted and the government­s have been changed. This time, after a change in the alliance partners in the central government, new teams are forming the provincial government­s in all seven provinces. The political leadership are unable to pay attention to the developmen­t works.

The House of Representa­tives is not able to function despite many bills being pending and waiting for final approval from parliament. Earlier, the UML was disrupting parliament meetings, now, the Nepali Congress. One after another corruption files have been opened, however, the probe commission­s are unable to identify those political leaders involved in corruption and manipulati­on, but the bureaucrac­y is blamed for being involved in the scams. Such attempts have demoralize­d the bureaucrac­y and it has virtually been paralyzed. There is rampant corruption and daylight

 ?? ?? RPP demonstrat­ion in Kathmandu on Tuesday.
RPP demonstrat­ion in Kathmandu on Tuesday.

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