There was this "Sammelan' that Maoists organized recently somehwere in the capital. The letters in the banners were written in both english and nepali. I am not sure if they wrote correct 'spelling' for the nepali words, but the english words were grossly mis-spelled.
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Although some high school drop-out YCL cadres may not have discerned the differences between “insuring” and “ensuring,” I, however, would like to thank them for their blatant abuse of simple english words. At a time when the proposed Constituent Assembly election is being derailed from every possible angle, nothing seems more fitting than insuring this election. Indeed, insuring is a way of ensuring.

We purchase insurance to protect us against a fall in the value of an asset we own. For example, I purchase auto insurance to protect myself from the fall in the value of my vehicle from unforeseen damages, financially at least. My insurer takes the risk of paying my bills in excess of the deductible in the event that my vehicle is damaged. But for taking my risk, I have to pay a certain price, called premiums, to my insurer even when my car is running at its best. So, by paying premiums every month, I transfer my risk to my insurer. At a time when we can protect the fall in the value of every imaginable assets we own, sometimes of assets we don’t even own, why shouldn’t we be able to protect the nation from the fall in the value of our democratic systems as well?

Just like an insured vehicle owner will not have to mourn over the loss if and when his vehicle is damaged, an election-insured nation will not have to feel devastated if and when free and fair elections become only a distant possibility. Just take our own case, the estimated total loss due to postponement of the election that was slated for November is more than $10 million. That is a huge price to pay for the incompetence of our leaders, brazenness of YCL cadres, and cry-baby attitude of the Maoists. But that is not all: we have now lost faith of the public and the international community as well. The excitement and optimism that had permeated through the masses after the success of the April revolution have already been sapped by unrealized hopes of having Constituent Assembly elections one day. Certainly, an insurance contract against this postponement could have at least mitigated that financial loss.

One might argue that there aren’t any insurance policies in the market that insures elections to insure our elections. That is true, but I don’t see why there won’t be any if there is a market for it. You might ask, if there is a market for it, then why aren't insurance companies going into it. True, but this market has not developed yet. That's why the threshold will be higher for any insurance company to go into this line of business. Once they jump into it, not only can insurers develop contract/policies for nations, but they could also develop individual policies for political parties. Definitely, this is a huge untapped market. I would argue that it would be beneficial for even parties like Maoists to purchase insurance against a certain number of seats that they have "asumed* they will win, as most likely they will have a hard time even garnering more than a dozen seats should there be a free and a fair election.

Then, can a poor and a fragile nation like ours pay insurance premiums to conduct a farce election that no one knows will bring even half the changes that our politicians are harping all along? This, I think, is something that a country or a party should decide on a cost-benefit analysis. If a country thinks that a fall in the value would seriously jeopardize the nation and its democratic process, then I think it is worth every penny. At a special and critical juncture such as the current existing situation, even if it means we will be in serious debt for a number of years, we should insure our elections. Only then will we ensure it.