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Kathmandu: Things are inauspicious for the Deuba government. His cabinet has not met two weeks in a row. His ministers are contradicting themselves. His largest coalition partners are already breaking apart, the seams and then there is “king maker”, the UML’s Madhav Nepal, imposing his dictates on government while the UML’s deputy Prime Minister, finance minister, Bharat Mohan Adhikari threatening to go solo in his forthcoming budget in the absence of essential coordination.

This is not altogether surprising. In the over fifty year history of Nepal’s organizational politics, coalitions have not lasted long. The very first Rana-Congress cabinet broke apart in less than a year. The three coalitions of the RPP’s Chand, and Thapa did the same some years back. The one headed by Deuba that followed was soon replaced by the Girija-Madhav coalition which finally conducted the last general elections. The very fact that it took some twenty months to form the closest thing to a national government as cajoled by the King demonstrates the fractiousness of a political sector seemingly bent to put the nation and the constitution in jeopardy in the search for partisan advantage.

Of course, it took the coalescing parties three weeks to patch up their “common minimum program” with the realization that a coalition culture was highly necessary to solve the national crisis. Evidently, that culture is yet in the making.

And so if the first government under article 127 began facing public opposition after the first month and the Thapa government which followed was opposed after a fortnight. Deuba’s coalition is seriously threatened from day one. To be noted moreover, is that more than the opposition coming from the now nearly marginalized agitation led by Girija Prasad Koirala’s congress, the real threat is from within the constituent parties of the coalition where individual members in the UML, the RPP and even the Sadbhavana have come public with deliberations to assuage their conceived disgruntlements. Even Deuba’s own congress-D stalwarts, left in the cold from the cabinet are said to be on the move to whip him with the Girija Koirala stick.

Of course, the biggest threat to Deuba will always be Madhav Nepal’s UML. Coalition experience in Nepal in no case minimizes the possibility of this quarter deserting Deuba outright after the advantage of government has helped fill its election coffers. The UML has only been in government for months at a stretch since 1990. Its senior role in K.P. Bhattarai interim government helped entrench is as verily the second largest party in the country after the first general elections. The second elections conducted by Koirala under a cloud of dissent within the congress helped flip the UML to a nine-month minority government. Coalition with the RPP helped bring it the largest representation at the local levels while partnering the GP Koirala led election government gave it the role of the largest opposition party again.

In essence thus, the need to fill party coffers from government is a desperation all its own for this cadre based party and so the seemingly endless manipulations of its leaders. To boot, if Madhav Nepal’s Prime Ministerial ambitions has been repeatedly stalled by rival Girija’s manipulations, the possibility that his claim to office as heading the largest opposition party in the dissolved parliament will be fulfilled by a Deuba exit makes possible the surmise that he will at any time pull the coalition carpet from under Deuba’s already shaky feet. These may be mere speculation, however. But the biggest threat to Deuba lurks from the Maoist quarters. As yet Deuba’s peace gestures to the insurgency have been ignored outright. This gives meaning to a UML-Maoist strategy currently under widespread speculation. The possibilities here, too, suggest the proximity of the collapse of the Deuba coalition.