Break the stalemate!

May 28, 2003
2 MIN READ
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Kathmandu: The political crisis mounts as agitating political parties blow hot and cold over the Royal action of October 4. The parties have announced their third phase where they seek to call the dissolved parliament on the streets and threaten tough action against uncooperative cadre who have now become increasingly vocal against their leadership.

It is in this threat that real politics is ingrained. The fact is that the parties are threatened by major cadre revolt. An uncooperative public is reining in mass participation and ridiculing grass root workers without whose cooperation enthusiasm in the agitating program dwindles. Both the congress and the UML face desertions stalled only by the virtual lack of alternatives. Indeed, it is for this that government is much to blame. If the King’s action has obviously halted the downward spiral of state that every body knows was at the hands of the currently agitating political parties, the people have yet to be given the options they seek in politics as alternative to these very political parties who continue to monopolize organized politics with little competition from anywhere else.

By and large over the past eight months of the Lokendra Bahadur Chand government, the absence of options have created King direct. It should have been the Chand government that cushioned this effect. This has not happened. No seemingly spontaneous public response to the party actions and charges has been initiated. While the King’s response directly in the media was very willingly welcomed by the eager public, government appears limited to speechifying in the media and convincing organized response on part of government is overly due.

This explains the public frustration at both the political parties and government and the unease that prevails contributes as much to the current sense of instability as it does to lack of a forward looking alternative to the current stalemate.

In this sense again, a change in the current situation is very much predictable. The stalemate must be broken for the King’s daring October action to carry any meaning. It is for this that the public welcomed the action and continues to resist the shenanigans of the organized politicians.