On May 14, nearly 2,000 cadres from 27 parties representing Madhesis, Janjatis and other Nepali ethnic minorities, under a loose coalition called the Sanghiya Gathbandhan, or Federal Alliance, marched through central Kathmandu inaugurating the beginning of planned protests within the capital of Nepal.

The Alliance submitted a 26-point memorandum to the government last month demanding the redrawing of provincial boundaries and other crucial amendments to the current Constitution.

For the past three days, amid high police deployment, the agitating parties have gathered at Maitighar Mandala – a central square and thoroughfare – and Prime Minister KP Oli’s residence, to pressure the government to hear their demands. On Wednesday, the alliance announced that they would continue their protests for the next ten days in key locations within the valley. This protest marks a new phase of Madhesi-Tharu and Janjati resistance in the capital following a six-month long agitation in the southern plains last year.

Nearly a week before the beginning of these protests, on May 8, Nepali President Bidya Bhandari, in unveiling the programs and policies of the government for the year 2016-’17, declared in Parliament that local elections would take place in November. This has generated a lot of anger among various political groups, including party members of the Federal Alliance.

Why?

Too early for polls?

Nepal has not had local elections since 1997. Administrative services in the country are carried out through wards, village development committees and municipalities in its 75 districts. Appointments to these bodies are supposed to be done through elections but for the last 18 years they have been made directly by the Home Ministry.

Clearly, this has an impact on how citizens access state services, as people rely on these bodies for a wide range of needs including citizenship documents and land deeds.

Since 1997, the country has seen a bewildering range of events – the culmination of people’s war, a bloody massacre at the royal palace in Kathmandu, the suspension of Parliament by the former king Gyanendra, the popular uprising or jan andolan of 2006, a comprehensive peace agreement in which the Maoists came overground, joined parliamentary democracy and formed Nepal’s first republican government with an overwhelming electoral mandate, a devastating earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people, and the promulgation of a Constitution at a time when the southern plains were erupting in protests.

Although in the last decade the country saw two elections to the Constituent Assembly to determine what shape the Constitution of the new republic should take and what values it should be guided by, the question of local elections has usually been set aside until the more pressing contradictions of statecraft are resolved. There was a brief, abortive attempt by the king in 2005 to hold local elections, but it was largely boycotted, with an under 20% turnout. In the present context, the announcement of local elections at this time may be seen as an attempt by the ruling establishment to entrench a Constitution that is deeply contested.

The quest for federalism

At the bottom of Nepal’s ever-shifting political firmament lies the fundamental question that divides the Nepali polity ­– federalism. How must states be demarcated in an uneven geography with a fraught political history and deep social divisions?

There have been predominantly two views on this. While one envisages a Nepal divided into administrative units regardless of the demographic make-up in the hills and the plains, the other argues for boundaries that proportionally represent ethnic and linguistic minorities based on how they are concentrated across the country.

The Constitution, passed on September 20, 2015, largely upheld the former, amid a prolonged and deadly agitation in the terai – the low-lying plains contiguous with India – in which 57 people died. An ensuing blockade, tacitly supported by India, cut off supplies to the capital bringing it to a halt, with sharp consequences felt across the class divide, and fuelling a black market economy that persists to the day.

However, supporters of the Constitution tend to look at the crises as purely an expression of India’s aggrandisement in the region. While India’s continuous involvement in the affairs of a sovereign country does complicate the picture, it is a long walk to suggest the anger and protest in the plains towards the Nepali state was engineered by India. It pays short shrift to the social discontent simmering among Nepal’s ethnic minorities and their very legitimate grievances against a history of structural marginalisation in the country.

The current Constitution is seen as failing them on chiefly two grounds: The division of constituencies which Madhesis feel do not adequately represent population densities, and the decrease in proportional representation in electoral systems, which reduces the potential for a truly representative democratic setup.

Given this context, the call for local elections by the KP Oli-led Nepal government has widened the cleavages both within the ruling coalition, and without – among Madhesi and Janjati parties across the board, as well as the primary opposition the Nepali Congress.

Opposition resolute

The Nepali Congress and other detractors have viewed the proposed elections as putting the horse before the cart. To begin with, there are technical difficulties that lie ahead of such a move. Federal state-level infrastructure does not yet exist to support local level elections. Constituencies are still to be determined, and provinces and their capitals yet to be named. A commission appointed by the government has till March 2017 to finalise the boundaries of village development committees and autonomous regions. To consider conducting local elections before this is done makes little sense as once elected to posts, it is unlikely members will relinquish their positions if there is a split or merger in key areas. In the absence of state chief ministers, it is also unclear to whom the elected members will be reporting to.

There is a sense that fast-tracking the local elections, in the manner of the Constitution, will further dilute the unresolved question of federalism. Ang Kaji Sherpa, central member of the Federal Socialist Forum Nepal, said in the absence of a reworked Constitution “we will absolutely oppose these elections. Federalism is supposed to enable more participation at local levels.” According to the chairman of the Federal Socialist Forum Nepal Upendra Yadav, conducting local elections now is an effort that “aims to render federalism useless by not letting provinces organise the local polls.”

Indeed, at present, it is hard to see how local elections might take place without ending in a political stalemate, or indeed what effects it might have when a foundational conflict regarding the Constitution is unfolding in Nepal.

Puja Sen is a Kathmandu-based journalist.