Kathmandu: There is little indication that the political situation is on the mend. Prime Minister Koirala has launched his promised attempt at dialogue with other parliamentary parties but with little response. The Sadbhavana which has claimed publicly that it will oppose the renewed ordinances when it comes up for parliamentary approval is hardly a beginning. The RPP has drawn up its own opposition campaign claiming a “mediatory role” in the widening gap between the opposition and the government. The UML that now heads the other minor left parties outside the ML has already announced the continuity of its street campaign with promises that it will step-up the opposition in the streets if the PM doesn’t resign within a month. This is so much so that the UML says the budget session expected in May next month will be as disturbed as the winter session. The ML continues its lone agitation in various guises and the Maoists continue their insurgency.

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It is widely expected that the current scheme of thing will lead to a point of no return. The government’s package program that seeks a role for the army in the Maoist disturbed area has failed at the very outset with the army demanding accord in Parliament for it’s intervention to receive constitutionality and not to appear partisan. The government is once more on the warpath asking the King as Supreme Commander in Chief to provide the Army the role the government seeks. As an option government whips up allegation that the Maoists have “Palace” support as demonstrated by the unwillingness of the army to take part in the package program. The army on the other hand is professional when it seeks parliamentary mandate and assemblance of non-partisan consensus if it is to be effective in the counter insurgency move that the package program seeks.

This dangerous stalemate is leading to state of disarray. The consensus is that Girijababu’s government is clinging to its lame duck status on grounds of constitutionality provided by the majority the congress holds in the parliament. The fact that that the majority is itself in disarray with a sizeable chunk oppose to the Girija leadership is no constitutional question here. The fact that that opposition to Girija will not want to make its position in the congress more precarious than currently is hardly a constitutional question. Nor for that matter is the question of constitutional practice challenged when the sitting congress parliamentary majority is unable to allow parliament to do business. These constitutional questions remain unanswered in the current scheme of things and so it is the Palace that must again be whipped for a role all Parliamentary political parties seek for partisan gains regardless of their standpoints on constitutional monarchy.

Indeed willy-nilly the past month and the coming ones will see politics conducted in the name of democracy seeking a partisan role from the Constitutional monarch. The widespread discord on the Maoist issues between government and the opposition and between the factions in the government itself will seek a solution from the monarchy. The Maoists for examples have themselves publicly welcomed the opportunity to take on the Royal Nepal Army. The Girija government wants to use the Army regardless of the opposition standpoints. The opposition including those within the congress don’t see this as a situation and even oppose the measures in the Royal Ordinance for the Armed Police and regional administrators that are key components of the government’s anti-insurgency package. The army on the other hand insists that its role be sanctioned by parliament and hardly likely to be enabled to do business. As the system remains thus paralyzed, the Maoists make gains further rendering the situation precarious.