Democracy Requires A Robust National Integrity

Introduction:

National integrity system rests on the performance of dharma of each actor and institution to assume responsibility as per their personal and institutional roles. A robust national integrity involves controlling the compounding vices and promoting the virtuous normative order of society, economy and polity.

The central elements of functioning democracy are non-corrupt, fair, transparent and accountable governance which are essential for sustainable development and participatory democracy. Active citizens, independent media, civil society rooted in niskam karma (selfless service) and the autonomous courts make corruption a high-risk game. Corruption unlawfully personalizes the commonwealth of the nation and public goods and increases cost for their availability for the weaker members of society.

This has removed the stakes of ordinary Nepalis from democratic polity. The reason for the jubilation of all types of regimes by the people explains the fact that the politically system did not serve the people and people were not given critical political education enabling them to judge the performance of authorities whose appetites gallop beyond the requirements of essential needs.

In Nepal partisan orientation of courts, civil society, media and the public has damaged the power separation, checks and devolution and ethics to motivate public orientation to the public and national interests. As a result, the line between accepted behavior and unauthorized personal gain of public authorities has become shaky. One can see “rule” and “law” faced disjuncture and selective justice, impunity, privileges and loopholes made it difficult to shape constitutional behavior of all natives to spur the just operation of public institutions.

A rational political system requires cutting the sources of kleptocracy and restraining the desire of leadership for disproportional power and wealth relative to the assumption of corresponding accountability and distributional consequences. This is the problem with political leaders who have renounced the responsibility of policy sovereignty of parliament and senior bureaucrats who are habituated to adopt de-constitutionalized public policies without bearing the consequences of their failure to solve complex problems encountered by the people. The addiction of aid and crippling debt has reduced the scope of domestic resource mobilization and downward accountability of governance and increased incentive for corruption. Certain points are worth considering:

Procedural Fairness:

Democracy is based not only on the outcome of government but also on the legitimate means of acquiring the outcome. In a transitional nation like Nepal, checks on irresponsible power and minimization of corruption are vital to bring economic efficiency for poverty alleviation, political accountability, judicial fairness and democratic consolidation.

Corruption has pervaded into Nepali’s political life because authorities preferred to live beyond their legitimate salary, perks and facilities and misappropriated public funds allocated for development. Only the rational adjustment of authorities to democratic life can uphold procedural fairness in the management of private and public life. Their impulse for career enrichment, rather than public service, subordinated public morality, constitutional duties and electoral promises.

It has become easy in Nepal as public officials weaken their institutional duty to act impartially to powerful leaders for the promotion of their career path. When government officials and political leaders tie up the nakedness of their greed and compromise their responsibilities they hobble the institutional base of democracy, its beauty of power checks, integrity, honesty, professionalism and uncoerced peace based on constitutional and human rights of people.

Leaders who are corrupt and driven by an absolute quest for power rather than fulfilling their electoral and constitutional promises mirror nothing but a corrosion of civic virtue, a virtue which is the cardinal edifice of democracy. The deficits of democratic values in Nepal is evident from the politics of negation, practice of economic and political syndicate and formation of opportunistic nature of one-after another coalition governments who often spitted against the winds of change legitimately demanded by public intellectuals and youths.

Violation of election code of conduct, reduction of electoral choice, vote buying and selling and excessive use of money in politics violate the integrity of politics, public opinion and legitimacy. The revolt of Generation Z marks the accumulated frustration, despondency and lack of alternative vision of reformist politics. Anomic environment accumulated over decades by pervasive political, social and economic malaises in Nepal has provided structural causes for anti-corruption drive and structural change of the public sphere.

Breaking Economic and Political Monopoly:

The economic and political monopoly practiced since long has epitomized the syndicate system and control of power through an unholy alliance of bureaucratic, political and business classes. It amounts to the growth of an uncompetitive market and party system, skewed delivery of public goods and services to the people and disrespect to popular sovereignty.

This is the reason Nepal has failed to meet the goals of sustainable development, its critical preconditions, such as capacity development, efficiency in public sector management, result-orientation, public participation, accountability, transparency, national integrity and legal framework for development. They help check the abuses of authority of various actors and manage the conflicts arising out of a number of reasons-creed, greed and grievances.

Nepal has made an institutional framework to uphold the integrity of the policy such as Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority, Department of Money Laundering Investigation, National Investigation Department, National Vigilance Center, Central Investigation Bureau and Crime Branch of Police. But the partisan distribution of leadership positions in these structures has cut their political will to control high profile crime. As a result Nepal ranks in 107th position out of 180 nations in the corruption perception index. Looted public funds land in foreign banks. Media reflect leaders’ biased decisions in trampling constitutional constraints on unaccountable power and authority. The nation’s illegal trade practices have caused huge capital flight.

Reducing the Costs of Democratic Progress:

Corruption has incurred inordinate costs for doing business of politics and building the stake of people in sustainable development. In a monopoly market, only corruption can provide lubricant to its access. This cuts the welfare of the people and adds irrationality to the actors of governance. The common tendency of such money accumulation through corruption does not go to reinvestment in productive sectors such as agriculture, industry, education, health and technological change but to financing elections, lands in foreign banks, excessive consumption of luxury items, distortion of management practices and investment in unworthy symbolic projects like constructing view towers having nothing to do to promote the welfare of people or spending in redundant projects such as setting office sea vessels.

Although it is difficult to estimate the economic costs of corruption in Nepal owing to its under the table deal one, however, easily notices by its effects, such as purchase of inappropriate luxurious cars, rent-seeking from clients, decision in favor of unproductive projects and increasing cost of goods and services thus snaring Nepal in the vicious cycle of debt, dependence and poverty and inequality.

Where bureaucratic bribery is institutionalized, it follows several vexing costs, such as bureaucrats not holding their jobs in high esteem. In case of low salary, the petty corruption system de-motivates them. Tendency appears in foreign travel and participation in externally funded seminars, conferences, workshops and training and, in some cases, phony payment. Media reveal that even high officials like judges are paid for chairing the session or inaugurating the workshops.

A rigid polity with a multiple source of monopoly on authorities, “petty corruption” becomes widespread adding indignation of the people. Nepal’s revenue department, transport, law enforcement offices, and the public utility section are plagued by this disease. Within the same office superiors demand bribes for expediting services. Major parastatal contracts in Nepal are obtained only through bribes which in the long-run increases the costs for the people to shoulder. Reagrarianization and deindustrialization in Nepal is essential to meet people’s legitimate needs.

Rediscovering Native Values:

Nepal has recorded how local secretaries gobbled up social security funds adding trouble to the senior citizens, disabled and deprived and eroding the integrity of local polity. When corruption becomes a business necessity in no way it sets the standards of shuva lav in business practices. The founder of modern Nepal Prithvi Narayan Shaha had long ago said, “Bribe givers and takers are the enemy of the nation.”

In Nepal, project and construction of roads, airports, public houses, predatory lending (loan shark), cooperative fraud, visit visa kickback, conversion of Nepalis into Bhutanese refugees, huge tax exemption to corporate sectors for funding elections, gold smuggling etc involved grand corruption. As the culprits are exempted or law relaxed for them it undermines the national integrity system of Nepali democracy. When high profile crimes and corruption are condoned by the institution of justice, regulative agencies and institutions of enlightenment, people blame not only the culprit but the system and leadership.

Rent-seeking is also practiced in appointing project officials, transfer and promotion of government officials in lucrative posts either on the basis of bribe paid, nexus to leadership or partisan distribution of posts. They erode professionalism, autonomy and integrity and deprive people from the benefits of the government, political system and the state. Others are price manipulation, cartel and monopoly in the market which create artificial scarcity and stifle market competition in the delivery of public goods. Such practices impair legitimate business practices such as innovation, economic growth and investment in productive sectors and generate multiple defects in democracy.

When corruption is systematic, it is not possible to check it without eradicating the structural causes as a whole and formulation of outcome-driven legal and political action. Nepal requires the autonomy and effectiveness of anti-corruption watchdog; public participation in the decision making process by activating the right to information action act, renewing the role of autonomous and genuine civil society detached from political parties and consulting agencies; impartiality and accountability of the judicial process, the media’s public role; the private sector awareness and due diligence on them. This enhances public trust and international cooperation and realization of its commitment to the UN Convention Against Corruption and alignment of laws to anti—crime framework.

The public sector anti-corruption strategies involve the setting up and enforcement of a public sector ethical code and ethical business practices, strengthening of criminal justice system, penalties, organizational change of civil service, disclosure of income, assets and gifts by public officials, and an improvement in the acquisition procedures. Public programs afflicted with corruption require the office of an Ombudsman and highest level of audit institutions, such as Auditor General that work as “watchdog role.”

The success of such institutions lies in political backup at the highest echelon of the government; possess autonomy, build power to access to information and their leaderships possess sufficient credibility before the public. The primary function of such an Ombudsman is to examine the fairness of the decision-making process. Ideally, public participation in the democratic process is expressed to be expected through free and fair elections where the roles of Election Commission and polling officials become crucial. Only the receptive public representatives can make an executive accountable to its rational actions.

Conclusion:

Unless admin authorities and top political leaders show satisfactory promise towards Seven Principles of Public Life, such as selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership, institutional culture alone cannot secure national integrity of Nepali polity. Anti-corruption initiatives are less likely to succeed in the absence of public support, especially the support of active public, civil society, independent media and courts. In strengthening the national integrity system civil society has a vested interest in monitoring, detecting and reversing the activities of public officials inspiring citizens to collectively act.

In ways judges are appointed and promoted and the Auditor General function independent of the political process are crucial to the control of corruption. Nepal’s Attorney General’s office publishes huge unsettled accounts every year and suggests measures as to how to keep the financial integrity system but its recommendations remain in limbo. Right to information establishes the media’s central role in enforcing the accountability of leaders to the public. Media monitors the corruption of both private and public sectors and provides a wide range of perspectives on public policy.

New approaches to development cooperation between developed and developing nations require harmonization of their domestic laws for judicial cooperation among trading partners. Promotion of the national integrity system requires citizens’ abiding support of and commitment to fighting corruption. Some forms of cooperation may help strengthen some political parties yet, on the whole, it weakens the pattern of authority and hinders democratic development. Corruption flourishes in the deinstitutionalization of the political system and dries up civic life.

It is, however, possible to minimize corruption by the infusion of ethics into politics, business and administration and enforcement of a moral standard in society, economy and polity. To rebuild the moral foundation of democracy, a vibrant civil society is absolutely essential which can control corruption, money laundering and economic fraud. Otherwise, corruption gnaws vitals of democracy terribly and kills its ability to improve the indicators of good governance and wellbeing to people.

(Dahal is reader of Political Science, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu)