Kathmandu: Islamabad ceremony on SAARC hardly detract Nepali preoccupation with anticipation of coming politics outside the fact that Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa is away and his return will set the ball rolling for change. His promise, belated as it was, of a postponed cabinet expansion has been steam-rolled in public attention by the Royal audience to Madhav Nepal and Thapa will find if difficult to return the focus of change.

Mr. Nepal has been largely mum on events with the King at Nagarjun Palace. But the public is aware that the UML chief has a new mission of reconciliation. Perhaps Nepal will find this mission handicapped by the party encouragement of students’ cadre to pour the tirade it has been pouring against the King. Reining in the coaxed students for sake of participating in a seemingly all-party cabinet that must be blessed by the King is a difficult proposition for a party leader who has active opponents within the party that can undercut him on grounds of a sell-out.

But the King has set the ball rolling. He, as every one, is aware that Nepal will find his party as difficult to carry as the four other parties that are allies against the King on the streets. Not surprisingly rumors were purposely floated by these very parties that the King was due to meet other leaders. Both Deuba and Girija Prasad Koirala. It seems, eagerly await Royal summons regardless of the fact that the message will be the same. The partisan media has a purpose when it tries to cover up the public awareness that a united solution and definitive agenda will not emanate from this sector although the target is for the representation in a government that must conduct elections.

The ongoing street movement is thus a convenient tool by which the parties will retain pressure on the monarchy to bow in to their demands. The monarchy has more than demonstrated its limits of accommodation. Chand and Thapa may come and go but his search for a well represented cabinet continues but is thwarted by none else than the very parties who demanded on the streets while they have no other agenda for national solutions when it comes to governance.

Significantly, charges that Nepal is playing close to his chest have already emerged and the most likely deterrent to his mission will be his street-ally Girija Prasad Koirala. In all probability the one-man party, NMKP, will prefer to stay out of the coming scheme of things while giving a nod to Nepal’s mission and the minor Left that is the other component outside the Sadbhavana splinter in the street coalition may prefer independent action. However, Nepal’s sacrifice of foregoing his leadership of a change in government may reward him the advantage of a forged coalition that will claim the necessary representation to face the polls. The strength thus forged will have successfully elbowed out underground Thapa-Koirala alliance that would otherwise have ruled the election roost.