Maoist takeover not near: Dr Bhattarai

TIKA R PRADHAN

KATHMANDU: UCPN-Maoist Vice-Chairman Dr Baburam Bhattarai today said a ‘Maoist revolutionary takeover’ is impossible in Nepal at present due to an unfavourable international situation and ‘existing internal military balance’.

Presenting a paper titled ‘Post-conflict restructuring of Nepal: The Challenges and Prospects’ organised by the Institute of South Asian Studies of National University of Singapore, he said the second scenario would be a new historical compromise between the two contending political forces — parliamentary democrats and the revolutionary Maoists — to take the peace process to a logical conclusion and make a new constitution through CA to restructure the state, society and economy.

“Given the current stage of development of the Nepali society transiting from feudalism to capitalism and the prevailing balance of political forces both internally and externally, this is an historical necessity and most sensible political move for both the sides,” he argued.

He opined that the earlier triangular fight among the feudal monarchists, bourgeoisie parliamentary democrats and proletarian radical democrats has now turned into a bipolar contention between the bourgeoisie and proletarian democrats. “This is the essence of the current political stalemate.” For the political deadlock to end, either one side should prevail over the other or the two sides should enter a new compromise, he argued. Dr Bhattarai, however, said the traditional parliamentary democratic forces led by the NC and backed by status quoist international forces may defeat the proletarian democratic forces led by the UCPN-M and impose the traditional bourgeoisie democratic system.

“Though this probability cannot be ruled out, it is less likely to happen on two counts. On one hand, it cannot fulfil the objective necessity of progressive restructuring of the Nepali state, society and economy for which the masses have struggled for more than six decades. On the other, the political balance of forces in Nepal over the past decades has decisively taken a left turn, which has been clearly manifested in the CA election with the left candidates winning more than 62 pc CA seats.”

Dr Bhattarai stated the third and most undesirable scenario would be the breakdown of peace and constitution making processes and relapse of the country into a new phase of armed confrontation. “The scenario would be most alarming as it is likely to spark a regional conflict with involvement of immediate neighbours and other global powers. It needs to be avoided at all costs.”