NepalElections
Election Commission building in Kathmandu, formerly a
Russian hotel
Courtesy Janet MacDonald
The 1981 Elections
Growing political unrest, accompanied by massive
demonstrations, forced King Birendra, as a palliative
tactic, to
call for a nationwide referendum to choose the form of
government.
Following the May 2, 1980, referendum--the subject of
charges of
rigging--the panchayat system was reaffirmed.
However,
members of the Rashtriya Panchayat would henceforth be
elected
directly by the people on the basis of universal adult
suffrage.
In May 1981, the king promulgated the third amendment
to the
1962 constitution incorporating the results of the
referendum.
There was no change in the fundamental principle of
partylessness;
all candidates for the Rashtriya Panchayat competed as
individuals.
The first direct election to the Rashtriya Panchayat
was held
in May 1981. In the midst of an election boycott by the
Nepali
Congress Party and other banned political parties, the
exercise
only legitimized the administration of Prime Minister
Thapa as a
democratically elected popular government. Indirectly,
however, the
election was counterproductive because it intensified
further the
increasingly sharp divisions within the various
panchayat
and the continued opposition of the Nepali Congress Party,
various
communist factions, and peasants' and workers'
organizations.
There were 1,096 candidates contesting 112 seats in the
1981
elections. Campaign appeals were made on regional, ethnic,
and
caste lines rather than on broad national issues. Among
the
contestants were forty-five candidates from pro-Moscow
communist
factions, thirty-six candidates from the Nepali Congress
Party, and
several multiparty pancha. Voter turnout was 63
percent.
Despite Thapa's reelection, more than 70 percent of the
official
candidates were defeated. Candidates who supported the
multiparty
system also fared poorly. The election of fifty-nine new
members in
the Rashtriya Panchayat indicated the voters' rejection of
the old
guard. The indirect participation of the political parties
was a
symbolic gesture toward national consensus and
reconciliation; the
chief protagonist was the moderate Nepali Congress Party
leader,
B.P. Koirala.
In the tradition of panchayat political patterns
of
instability, the quick fix of a referendum and new
elections failed
to restore political equilibrium to the system. Corruption
and
general administrative inertia further vitiated the
political
climate. Even senior panchayat leaders, who were
openly
critical of the system, became willing participants in
intrigues,
which only precipitated counterplots by paranoid palace
advisers.
Clashes between students, which were at times supported by
faculty
members, created disturbances throughout the country.
Data as of September 1991
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