By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Kathmandu : Nepal’s Maoists Wednesday announced they were reviving their parallel “people’s governments”, casting fresh doubts about the twice-postponed crucial election that is now to be held in April.
The announcement comes a week before the 12th anniversary of the Maoists’ “People’s War” that unleashed a decade of violence and bloodshed.
After launching an armed uprising against the state in February 1996 to dethrone the powerful royal dynasty, the Maoists began establishing their “revolutionary people’s councils” in the areas they had a stronghold, imposing their own governments, kangaroo courts and tax systems.
However, after they reached an understanding with the opposition parties to topple King Gyanendra and his government, the guerrillas signed a peace pact in June 2006, ending the revolt and pledging to dissolve their parallel governments and courts.
The pledge was strengthened in November 2006 when Maoist chief Prachanda and Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala signed a comprehensive peace agreement, paving the way for the rebels to join the government.
But now, with a little over two months left for the April 10 constituent assembly election, the Maoists have decided to resurrect the disbanded parallel governments.
The decision was partly due to pique as the guerrillas and the other ruling parties failed to reach an understanding on municipal bodies.
These local development bodies have been lying vacant after the municipal election held by King Gyanendra in 2006 were scrapped by the Koirala government.
With the seven ruling parties failing to reach an understanding on how to distribute the vacant posts among themselves, the Maoists have been growing impatient since control over such bodies is likely to swing votes for them in the coming election.
The rebels however say that the resurrected governments will not compete with the government in the way the earlier ones had.
Issuing a statement Wednesday, Baburam Bhattarai, the de facto deputy of Prachanda, said the people’s governments have been activated to address the problems faced by people in the districts and villages in the absence of municipal authorities.
The people’s governments will start “model joint development projects”, the statement said, without elaborating what the projects were.
The move comes even as Nepal’s Supreme Court Wednesday ordered the government to put on hold its earlier plan to give NRS 1 million (over $15,000) to every lawmaker to spend on “developmental work” in their constituencies.
Nepal’s leading lawyers opposed the move, saying the distribution of such largesse on the eve of the election would foster rampant corruption.
The resurrection of the disbanded governments was strongly criticised by the other parties.
“When a party that itself is part of the government revives parallel governments, it raises doubts about their commitment to the constituent assembly election,” said MP Minendra Rizal from the ruling Nepali Congress party.
Fresh fears are rising in Nepal about the fate of the April 10 poll.
The Maoists, who prevented the polls in November, are being accused of looking for excuses to postpone it yet again.
They have been trying to disrupt the poll rallies of the Nepali Congress and on Tuesday, a clash in Darchula district in farwest Nepal left eight people, including a former minister, injured.