The Role of Political Parties in Nepal’s Peace Building Process

After ten years of civil war in Nepal (1996 - 2006), the combatant forces brokered the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA). The war had ended, but peace was never fully established, and Nepal’s political economy remains weak and barely functioning. The CPA has been inoperative due to the power struggles of numerous parliamentary political parties in the post-insurgency Nepalese governments. The political parties see no use for the CPA in these power struggles. Their sole and continuing objective is to secure political power. The causes of and the problems created by the civil war have been ignored in the power struggles of the parliamentary parties. The peace process in Nepal is now paralysed. In recent years, persistent power struggles have exacerbated political instability, as the political elite prioritises immediate power over long-term peacebuilding efforts. The political parties have ignored, avoided, isolated, and derailed the peacebuilding process in Nepal. Hence, this paper analyses the political reality and the paralysed peace process in Nepal. It also examines how the activities of political parties have deliberately failed to bring the process of peacebuilding to Nepal. Finally, it proposes practical peacebuilding measures by which peacebuilding could occur in Nepal, bypassing the power struggles of the political parties in Nepal. Key words: Achievements, Failures, Paralysing, Personal interests, Democratic activities