VOTING FOR THE ANT AND OTHER NEPALI VOTING STORIES
Sushma Joshi
I rolled out of bed this morning specifically to vote for
the Dog. The Dog is the sign of the Bibeksheel Nepalis—a group of young Nepalis
who threw their hats in the ring of politics, with the aim to bring about the
some real change in Nepal’s troubling political scene.
It was about 10 am perhaps when I got to my voting site. The
area was full of people—quiet, respectful and completely engaged, it appeared,
in the process of putting in their votes. There was no tension, no violence, no
sign of anything but the greatest of engagement and respect for the election
process. Which was refreshing, after all the news of violence, threats and
intimidation on TV.
I had a sense Khil Raj Regmi’s address to the Mantriparishad
the night before had something to do with this. For those who saw Mr. Regmi for
the first time, they would have been struck first by his complete lack of
political savvy. The first thing he did was stop his prepared speech with a
startled look, saying: Is the mike on? Clearly he was not a masterful political
orator, or someone even used to speaking in a mike.
After a small giggle at his startled look, I realized in
some ways with what masterful acumen Baburam Bhattarai had chosen this non-political
man to head the process. It was impossible to feel ire against this man—for a
country riven deeply by ideological conflict, Mr. Regmi, with his chief justice
authority, but lack of political savvy, was the perfect man to draw respect
from all Nepalis. And his speech heightened this—he apologized to the victims
of violence. He urged for people to create an atmosphere of harmony, peace and
co-operation. He urged young people not to go out and harm children, women and
seniors with their violent activities during Elections Day. He stumbled on
every other line—clearly, oratory was not his forte. There was nothing one
could disagree with what he said—including the fact that Nepalis needed to come
together at this crucial hour to finish the task of writing the Constitution.
There was a polite silence in the room where I sat and watched his speech—and
no doubt all across the country people listened to him with the same sort of
respectful silence.
And on Elections day, there was that atmosphere in the air.
Everyone was there, from across the political spectrum. I didn’t see, however,
any hint of aggression, violence or intimidation. Unlike the previous election,
there was no sense of a greatly competitive race—it appeared all people
appeared to be casting votes more for the sake of using their voting rights
rather than with any great sense of winning or losing.
The security guards were firm, polite and guided me to my
spot within minutes. The five people who were checking their voter records
found mine within half a minute. Then I was given my blue sheet. I put my right
finger print on the matpatra. The woman asked me to carry the sheet with my
left hand so I didn’t smudge the sheet with the ink. Then I sat down at the
booth. I looked down at my blue sheet for the Dog.
But there was no Dog.
I looked again. There were a lot of other signs, but I
didn’t see a Dog.
Now this is the dilemma that probably faces a lot of Nepali
voters—the confusion of the matpatra on Election Day. I deliberated. I could
get up and go ask the people, but an impatient voter was already behind me with
his sheet, looking over my shoulder before vanishing again, so I had to make a
quick choice. Rather reluctantly, I put a sign next to one of the big parties.
Dissatisfied, I got up and went to the next table, where
they handed me the red samunapatik sheet. I put my thumbprint on the top.
Immediately I was escorted to the booth. Somehow the silence made me feel I
shouldn’t ask the people at the table where the Dog sign was nested.
I looked down at my red sheet. Surely the Dog would show up
at the samunapatik sheet. But there was no dog. There was a bee, an ant, a
camel, a goat, an umbrella, and various other intriguing signs which I had
never seen before. I checked vertically, and re-checked horizontally. No Dog.
Clearly this was like the multiple choice test. Time was
running out, and I had to make an educated guess what might have happened to
the Dog sign in the next half minute. Maybe I just didn’t recognize it? I
looked at the big parties lined up at the top, and thought how unfair it was
that the first thing the voter got to see were the biggies—they were impossible
to miss. So I looked down and decided, in the spirit of inclusivity, to give it
to a total unknown. But which one?
The Ant looked at me—I am an industrious, hardworking and
community-oriented little animal, it seemed to say. Clearly somebody who made
it to the Elections Office and asked for the ant as the symbol of their party
must have small egos and a great spirit of community organization. My one
concern as a Buddhist is that I could be supporting someone who’d go against
the first Buddhist precept (“Don’t kill.”) As to “Don’t steal and don’t lie,”
all parties probably violate this code of conduct, so I couldn’t check these
two precepts out. As far as I knew, most people who put themselves behind a
party probably agreed in large parts with the democratic principles not to
engage in violence. Anyways, the ant had always been a favorite little animal
of mine. And wasn’t the Samunapatik track an exercise in giving voices to the
small and the voiceless?
So I took up my little marker, and dropped my vote. For the
Ant. I have absolutely no idea who’s in the Ant Party, or what they stand for.
But I hope, in the spirit of inclusivity, that a small unknown party who didn’t
even have the funds to put up election posters will be happy that they got at
least one vote from an unrelated voter.
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