Half-myth of Maobadi terror

Aditya Adhikari Kathmandu

It appears, then, that the Maoist transition to parliamentary politics is now complete and in a strange reversal of roles, even before forming government, they find themselves in the position of the establishment towards whom the opposition directs demands. But the current manoeuvering has only temporarily obscured deep anxieties regarding the causes of the Maoist victory on the part of Nepal's old political class.
After the elections, the losing parties have had to confront the fact that the decade-long Maoist people's war brought fundamental changes to Nepali political culture from the centre down to remote villages. There is recognition that the Maoists penetrated into and politicised areas of society which had previously only a superficial immersion in politics, and the other parties recognise that they face a great challenge in reasserting their political presence in many places in the mountains and hilly terrain of the country (the Maoist hold on the plains is weaker due to the emergence of regional Madhesi parties).
After election results began coming out and the scale of the Maoist victory began to become clear, there was a period when leaders from the Nepali Congress (NC) and the CPN-UML complained bitterly that they had lost only because the Maoists used violence against members of other political parties to prevent them from campaigning. They alleged that the Maoists intimidated the public into voting for them and engaged in massive rigging on election day.
It is true that the Maoists and the Maoist-affiliated Young Communist League (YCL) beat up and temporarily abducted members of rival political parties and disrupted their campaigns. It is also true that in some cases they intimidated voters and even retaliated against entire villages for not voting for them after the election, by, for instance, cutting off water supply to a few villages. But analyses that seek to blame violence and blame as the sole causes of the Maoist victory ignore other aspects of the Maoist strategy. There is more to the Maoist victory then false and biased generalisations of universal intimidation.
The Maoists had the best campaign material with targeted promises and catchy slogans. And they were able to convincingly portray themselves as the party committed to major change. Their campaign reached remote villages where other parties did not reach or only made sporadic appearances. Maoist cadres educated the populace about the electoral system and method of voting in places where even voter education volunteers from the Election Commission did not visit. They made serious efforts to field candidates from a broad range of caste, ethnic and totally marginalised groups who were native to the areas they were running from.
Over the past decade the Maoists enmeshed their organisation into societal structures across the hills and mountains. They used this organisation to their fullest advantage in the election period. When other political parties began making forays outside district headquarters to campaign, they were confronted by the strength of already existing Maoist structures against which they were unable to compete.
Awareness of these causes of the Maoist victory dawned on the other parties after the election. NC leaders, who, before the election, were complacently relying on the support of the passive but perennially loyal NC voter, started speaking of the need to transform itself from a mass-based party into one with devoted, full-time cadres. The CPN-UML, which has always taken pride in its superior organisation, awoke to the fact that their structures did not penetrate deep enough. While old-style political manoeuvering continues in Kathmandu, the old parliamentary parties are haunted by the recognition that they will be unable to compete with the Maoists in future elections unless they radically reshape their local-level party structures.

The writer was affiliated with The Carter Center International Observation Mission in Nepal till May 2008