Road to Fair Representation: To Be or Not to Be Proportional?

[npnews]

Road to Fair Representation: To Be or Not to Be Proportional?

Nepal is a great country of debates and arguments, and the country would have been in the leading edge of philosophy if only the debates were done with sufficient research and originality. Nepal’s history is awash with creative and philosophical thinking, which is evident in great texts like Mahabharata, Ramayana, and Vedas, as well as in the science, technology, art and architecture that followed those texts. Just inspect Swayambhunath, Pashupatinath, and Changunarayan built two millennia ago that are still standing and in use, and you will be convinced. However, we are spending much time today in selecting among imported ideas than developing our own. The “mixed-representation” versus “proportional-representation” debate, which is going on for quite some time, is an evidence of our mindset that has turned lethargic.

http://www.nepalnews.com.np/archive/2007/others/guestcolumn/oct/guest_columns_10.php

[Muna]

Very Good Article. Well said

[dalal]

And me in the lead of all this ... And more!

[binoddhakal]

I liked the logic but I don't know how practical it is,

[Ross Gurung]

                                                YOU SAID PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION?

The nec plus ultra or the last word of Maoist fringe to impose on this poor country Nepal the proportional representation (PR) is precisely like the berezina ( river) for the Nepalese folks; that means the complete failure of representative democracy before it’s been not even voted. Is that called the rare bird?

Let us be practical. By PR we understand in general the final tally of votes to establish the exact proportion or percentage of ballots cast on behalf of such and such party to send MPs to the parliament. Let us suppose, for instance, they’re as follows:

Royalists = 30%, Maoists = 25%, Nepali Congress = 40% and Miscellaneous = 5%; giving out of estimated 240 MPs -- R = 72, M = 60, NC = 96 and Mi = 12 MPs where majority is at =120 MPs.

The party leaders distribute the seats strictly on the basis of their affinity with and devotion to the party chiefs not on the basis of the votes a member could tally ‘cause of his personal application, charisma and efficiency.

As a consequence, apparently the party nominated MPs have no direct and moral obligation towards any particular constituency and nobody requires recognizing his/her deputy. That’s called communist way of democracy where only the party counts, the rest are just for decoration!

Naturally such an ambivalent situation leads you to a hung parliament where there’d be never a stable government ‘cause of its entire dependence on the altering moods of the party chiefs and their henchmen.

Sometimes there’d be Congress + Royalists, Royalists + Maoists, Royalists + Maoists and Congress + Maoists get-together with a dwindling cabinet of ministers always at the mercy and menace of dirty wheeling and dealing of the party leaders.

As such there’d be Rump Parliament without aim and ambition and never any reform could be undertaken by such ghostly governments.

Let us contemplate something that happened in France, the country which is so dear to me, after the WW II. This country vegetated for years during the 4th Republic with PR [inspired by the French coco (commies) of that epoch]. Every 3 to 6 months of interval there’s a reshuffle of government and during that somber time people lived under the penumbra of starvation, France’s facing decolonization everywhere in Indo-china, Africa and she’d to prepare a clash for the sake of Suez canal (1956), and the then French coco were at their zenith to harass the country thru’ repeated strikes, by paralysing the country for every “yes” or “no”.

In 1958 de Gaulle took over the power after the putsch plotted by the league of generals in Algeria, the then French colony. A very tough and authoritarian 5th Republic replaced the 4th one. The same 5th Republic is still in place in France with many successive amendments and also ‘cause of a sudden economical growth slowly the appeased and grown up democracy installed definitely in this country bringing the communist votes in the 2007 presidential election to insignificant 1.5% That means the fangs of French coco are extracted! It took nevertheless half a century or more!! You imagine!!!

The new French government is willing to introduce for the next legislative election about 30% of PR to let the minorities to participate in this matured democracy as already put into practice in municipal, regional and European elections since early 1980s.

To be brief, it’s said that history stammers but it never repeats.

@+

[lumbini]

Some participants in this forum who thought themself that they are only the  master of all and rest are ignorant.And among them Ross is a leading character.But they themself including this chap are infact a completely ignorant of all subject matters.This is not the election that we are going to elect MPS rather we are going to elect our representatives for C.Assembly who will drafts the consitution of The Republic of Nepal.It is just nonsense to talk about hung or any other type of parliament.Most importantly except the royalist, the whole be elect members of C.Assembly from rest of all parties (NC,UML,Maoist including others )are republican and will favour republicanism and will draft the consitution with that spirit.There is zero chance of getting 30% of votes  by the royalists.Suppose let us assume that royalists got 30% of casted votes.But the remaining 70% of votes will  go for republicans and they will be in full majority in the assembly and can drafts the people`s constitution with majority.So no need to have fear with this hypothesis.Those people who thinks it are infact  scarecrows funded by royalist facists.This is a complete propaganda and a blatant lie to deceive Nepali people.

Some people like Ross think that the nomination of candidates by the parties to contest the CA election means like the distribution of a fathers properties among his male family members where the financially weak members are given better lands and more competents are given lower ,inferior lands.But it is not like that.The party will decides  its candidate according to the candidate`s contribution devotion ,performance, quality, capacity and their popularity.The royalists can do anything by nomanating any one from any walk of life.A village council member of cpn uml never be compitent for  neither C.A.election candidate nor for the parliament.

All the elected members from any parties have the moral obligation towards their belonging parties.Let me put it in this way all of them are oblige to follow their party`s policies and whips too otherwise they will be called back.So there is no point to raise this issue with such hostality.

What had happened in europe a century ago and what is happening in Nepal now are totally irrelavent subject matters.In the name of socalled democracy some people like Ross  are trying their best to creat confusion among nepali people to control the information for royals gain.We all nepali must come forward to defy these venoms.

Thank you

[topi3]

UNFORTUNATELY THE LABELLING OF MAOISTS IS TRUE. MAOISTS REPRESENT AT CONTENT LEVEL THE PEOPLE OF OUR OR YOUR COUNTRY....
THE WAY IN WHICH IS WRONG AND THE MILITARY WAY IS WORSE.
TONY BLAIR MADE UK INSECURITY PROBLEM, G BUSH MADE AMERICANS HATED AND WORLDWIDE BOYCOT OF EVEN ENGLISH LANGUAGE...
PLANET EARTH HAS MANY ANIMALS AND BEINGS THAT SPEAK OTHER THAN DOMINANT LANGUAGES....I HOPE THE VOTERS UNDERSTAND WHERE WE GO AND WE NEED MORE OPINION LEADERS TO LEAD US OUT OF THE CULTURE OF VIOLENCE AND FEAR OF MILITARY REPRESSION. WHEN THERE IS A CONSENSUS AND MAYBE SOMEBODY MUST SAY MAOISTS ARE SECRETELY DEMOCRATS, THOUGH WE DON'T KNOW WHAT A COMMUNIST NEPAL LOOKS LIKE, AND WE WANT TO RID OF THE OLD WHAT IS THE BEST SOLUTION?
THE MURDERED KING UNDERSTOOD HIS PEOPLE AND THE ARMY WAS IMPATIENT.
NOW IT IS THE OTHER WAY AROUND THE PEOPLE ARE IMPATIENT FOR DEMOCRACY AND NORMALITY. VERY VERY TIRED OF POVERTY AND ALL OTHER THINGS ALL WRITERS MENTIONED. THEN AT THE SAME TIME TO AVOID DOMINANCE OF USA AND THE LIKES, FOREIGN POSITIVE INPUT BECOMES HELPLESS. LIKE NEPAL WILL TAKE THE MONEY BUT SELF MANAGED.
I FULLY AGREE WITH PEACEKEEPERS NOT STOPPING BY NEPAL. NEPAL MUST GET ITS ACT TOGETHER NOW FOREVER. APART FROM THE CONFLICT WHICH WILL LAST GRADUALLY BECOMING LESS AT BEST, WHAT PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS FOR THE LOOSERS? BECAUSE ALL ARE LOOSERS ALREADY. AT BEST.
DO NOT BECOME AFGHANISTAN OR IRAK SHAPE UP INTERNALLY BEFORE MORE FANTASTIC AID DROPS FROM HEAVEN.

Road to Fair Representation: To Be or Not to Be Proportional?

Nepal is a great country of debates and arguments, and the country would have been in the leading edge of philosophy if only the debates were done with sufficient research and originality. Nepal’s history is awash with creative and philosophical thinking, which is evident in great texts like Mahabharata, Ramayana, and Vedas, as well as in the science, technology, art and architecture that followed those texts. Just inspect Swayambhunath, Pashupatinath, and Changunarayan built two millennia ago that are still standing and in use, and you will be convinced. However, we are spending much time today in selecting among imported ideas than developing our own. The “mixed-representation” versus “proportional-representation” debate, which is going on for quite some time, is an evidence of our mindset that has turned lethargic.

http://www.nepalnews.com.np/archive/2007/others/guestcolumn/oct/guest_columns_10.php