As the euphoria of the peace accord dies down, the eight parties will be hunkering down to form the interim government. But surely in the back of their minds they are already thinking about where and how to find the money to fight the elections to the constituent assembly elections and, hopefully, general elections 24 months after that.

The parties have been out of business since October 2002, and their coffers have dried up. Apart from the NC-(D) and the UML, who made some hay during the royal sunshine, the others are pretty much washed up. Where do they make the money?

There are no new planes for the national flag carrier, the state oil corporation is itself haemorrhaging, and no big new development projects are in sight.

For the Maoists too, the lockdown of their guns will mean a significant decrease in the ‘voluntary’ euphoria they successfully roused over the last decade. Only in Kathmandu Valley did the comrades realise that their version of ‘voluntarism’ was not going to work everywhere. Businesses have their own take on voluntarism, which is that money begets money, as cash-strapped parties are happy to dole out favours in exchange for liquidity.

The Beed feels strongly that the situation now calls for renewed harping on the need to legitimise political giving. Part of the political change should be that the days of ‘informal service charge’ and ‘favour levies’ come to an end. It’s a simple reality—parties need funding and historically this comes from individuals and businesses. Surely if the parties can decide on issues like the monarchy, they can reach a consensus on something this basic.

Donations to political parties should be made legitimate and capped at a certain percentage of business turnover, profits, or wealth. These expenses should be tax-deductible for the individual or organisation. Political parties which receive money in this manner should provide receipts. Parties can be tax exempt to a certain extent, but they’d need to file returns.

Even as they understand the difficulties in tax assessment, the parties will be forced into transparency. This is a head-on challenge to the larger problem of levies for favours. And the fact is, the way things are now just a fraction of the money collected informally in the name of the parties actually goes into the parties’ coffers, thereby creating animosity and strife between party members.

Contributions could initially be made to a fund that gets distributed to all political parties based on how many seats they have in the interim expanded parliament. If Nepal’s formal and informal business turnover is about Rs 250 billion, then a percentage of the same, say Rs 2.5 billion between the parties, should provide enough money for their election campaigns and daily operations.

The CPN-(Maoist) has always said that its fundraising is transparent. Perhaps it is time for them to provide leadership on this issue. In the coming political battle, this could be their comparative advantage over the covertly funded operations of the other parties.

There are many chances in front of Nepal now that do not come often. This particular one could be catalytic in setting off many other changes too. Here, finally, is an opportunity to tackle the bulk of graft. There are many allegations against many leaders under investigation, and the New Nepal will perhaps not pardon their sins. 

www.arthabeed.com