Democratic process in Nepal: An Understanding from Political Parties perspective

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The transition from monarchical democracy to a democratic republic was a significant step taken by political parties towards democratization of the Nepal, which occurred in the second people’s movement (2006). At the time of second people’s movement Nepal experienced many structural changes such as the conversion of monarchical democracy to a democratic republic, Maoist converted into a political party and realization of an elected Constituent Assembly all this straighten out by the political parties. With the widespread growth of electoral politics, political parties have proliferated around the world. Parties can be found in every continent and country, and multiparty systems of government have become the primary way to organize politics. Political parties play a vital role in the expansion and consolidation of democracy. The emergence of political parties in Nepal differed from other countries, where parties originated as a consequence of parliamentary politics, consequently parties originated as a caucus in the parliament, and on the basis of their agenda’s it’s called Left, Right, Democrats, Conservative, Republicans, Laborer’s etc.

The development of the political parties in Nepal over the last seven decades can be traced along three stages: party formation, party survival and party building. The years between, 1930-60 could be considered as the formative phase of political parties in Nepal. Unlike the evolution of the political parties in the West as the consequence of the extension of popular suffrage and the rise of parliament, Nepali political parties were rather suddenly created by the educated middle class as an instrument for bringing in democracy. Later on, the evolution of political parties in Nepal was bound up with the people’s movement. Given their close affiliation with the people’s uprising, the peoples’ aspirations have shaped the positions of political parties pertaining to monarchy and nature of the future political system, among others. In this context, this paper is dived into three sections. The first aims to deal with the origin, evolution and functioning of political parties in the third world while second one traces the origin and evolution of political parties in Nepal and their role in democratisation of Nepal. Since most of the democratic states in the Global South were colonies or dependent state and adopted democracy as a conscience of western influence, therefore, the last section compares and contrasts the roles of political parties in democratisation of Nepal and other parts states.