Change imminent?

December 15, 2004
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Kathmandu: The furor created over the Raj Parishad meet last week has made several things clear. The parliamentary political parties were unable to hinder the meet. The parliamentary parties were unable to gauze the constitutionality of the meet. The parliamentary political parties have contributed further to the functioning of the constitution by the student wing of the ruling Deuba party going to the streets against it. To boot, a section of the cabinet who are ex-officio members of the Raj Parishad and have sworn by its membership boycotting a constitutional meet of the Raj Parishad.

This is yet another example of the parliamentary political parties violating the constitution in their oft repeated penchant of opposing the constitutional process by interpreting the constitution to their will.

As much as this state of affairs is now no longer hidden and as much as the Raj Parishad meet can’t but touch upon it in their observation of the state of affairs in the country, there are two outstanding factors that the Raj Parishad meet and its reaction has further exposed.

Firstly, although previous such opposition remained covered up by the fact that the partisan media alone had to carry the opposition in public because of the virtual absence of the parliamentary parties outside Kathmandu, the concentration of their workers in Kathmandu could not prevent the meet from taking place.

Equally outstanding fact is that the attempt of the political parties to physically disrupt the inauguration of the central meet of the Parishad by strategically fielding their student cadre in Kathmandu streets between the Royal Palace and the meeting venue in Baneshwar could be dispersed within an hour by a determined security mechanism.

It is perhaps this determination that signals a “major change” in the effort at overcoming the much-recognized obstacles to provide impetus for positive change.

The constitutional crisis that has loomed large over the nation for years now has little solace from the parliamentary parties and the Raj Parishad would be blind if it does not recognize this. Furthermore, the UML ministers who boycotted the meet have hardly helped Raj Parishad cover up this behavioral anomaly in the constitution.

Security wise, the independence of the security action demonstrated in course of the meet can’t but be considered significant in attempts to analyze the coming scheme of things.

With the possibility of Kathmandu streets being swept of the presence of the increasingly limited opposition cadre, the effects of such opposition being largely limited to stage-managed political presence in the media are surely significant.

It is not for nothing therefore that the anticipation of a change is high.

Particularly the timing and nature of King Gyanendra’s India visit has only but, thus, added to this anticipation. After much seemingly deliberate prompting, the Royal Palace circular announcing a ten-day visit to India which covers critical neighboring states in our SOUTH and WEST is being taken with relief for very obvious reasons.