Democracy and Development in Nepal: Prospects and Challenges

Abstract

A number of Third World countries have moved either from military .dictatorships or one-party authoritarianism to pluralistic democracy in recent years. Nepal, which has a variegated history with respect to democracy, is one of the countries which changed from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy. Nepal achieved democracy and restored the position of the monarchy after the overthrow of the Rana oligarchy in 1951. In 1959, Nepal held its first parliamentary elections which gave the Nepali Congress party a landslide victory. However, Nepal's experiment with parliamentary democracy ended in December 1960 when King Mahendra, the father of the present king, abruptly dismissed the cabinet and dissolved the parliament. The king also banned political parties and imposed restrictions on the most fundamental human rights. After a brief period of direct rule, the king introduced a monolithic one-party authoritarian system of government called partyless in 1962. Nepal's main political parties, the Nepali Congress and the Nepal Communist party, had been organizing a resistance movement since the royal takeover in 1960. In February 1990, Nepal's major opposition political parties led by the Nepali Congress and supported by the United Left Front launched a popular movement for restoring democracy (MRD). Incipient with a series of demonstrations and protest marches initially concentrated in the Kathmandu Valley and a few Terai cities, the movement was intensified throughout the country by early April 1990. Capitulating to popular demand, King Birendra abolished the panchayat system and restored a multiparty system by lifting a ban on political parties on April 8, 1990. Managing democratic change in developing countries has not been easy. If power-hungry politicians and party workers have been trying to unseat elected governments, leaders of elected governments have sought more