Kathmandu: – Confusion reigns. Whether the opening Maoist-Government talks will help do away with confusion is itself part of the confusion. The source of the confusion is the political parties, which have cornered themselves into an overtly aggressive stand regarding the solution to the current crisis. Whatever, their standpoints- restoration of the dissolved parliament ort as government of parliamentary parties – it boils out to the original source of the confusion, namely, a government staffed and led by either the Girija Congress or the UML. It is this insistence on conducting any elections worth the name from the advantage of government that has degenerated the Nepali Constitutional process to the current stage. Outside these political parties everyone now acknowledges that this trend conceives the very source of confusion since the advantage of government is sought to prevent the government machinery for electoral advantage.
Not surprisingly the Maoists in their own revolutionary parlance seek the same advantage. Having g0one to war on platform of constitutional change they now seek peace with a compromise on an interim government of their participation. Their standpoint on a constituent assembly and a republican form of government have been so mellowed in the month log ceasefire process that the talks have now to hinge on what government is formed under what sort of participation.
These two corners in a triangle of conflicting political forces where the King has now assumed the third corner make Nepali politics for the moment one of a kind. There is thus room to predict that this politics is highly transient, it is highly volatile and it is inimical to the democratic process which have been disrupted by with the Maoists and the political parties who make much politics by blaming the King for the disruption.
The logic that the restoration of the democratic process is prime priority for the King holds. But for this he must disentangle himself from the Web of Contradictory political demands that suit both the extremes in their effort to dump the blame on the king and regains-eroding public credibility. It is thus that the public grasps at speculative alternatives it he realization of the King’s priorities. Speaker Taranath Rana Bhat, or former DPM Shailaja Acharays, K.P Woli or Bam Dev Gautam all in the mainstream parties who voice differences with their leadership immediately are picked upon possible Prime Ministerial candidates in an all party interim government for this reason.
These speculations make obvious the distance hat both G.P Koirala and Madhav Nepal has created in the public realm. They also make obvious the compulsion on part of the two to force the issue of their reinstatement to power. This makes obvious that they will disrupt the attempt to restore the democratic process and so it is possible to predict a constituting agitation. As of the moment it is not quite possible to predict exactly what line the Maoists will take. They count both the King and the political parties. This is also part of the confusion.