Kathmandu: The dramatic appointment of Sher Bahadur Deuba as prime minister last week has done several things at the same time. It has removed the nearly month long vacuum in government with an appointment of a parliamentary party which constituted government prior to the October 4, 2002 Royal move. It has put in office a party agitating in the streets in opposition to the move claiming reinstatement as the only correction to the 2002 aberration. It has cut the wind from the other five party agitation that has been exposed in its inability to name its prime ministerial candidate which was the bone of contention now made wide open to the public and because of this made ridiculous the rationale of the five party move.

Of course, Deuba will seek to capitalize on his reinstatement. But the fact is that he has been fixed for failing in this obligation to conduct constitutionally mandated elections on the basis of which he dissolved parliament and rehired under Article 127 after a crucial interregnum of twenty months in which the constitutional monarch sought a consensus candidate to head a national government. Deuba’s appointment is so far the closest claimant to such. Outside the Girija Congress he claims to have the support of the UML the RPP and the Sadbhawana, which combined, would compose a decisive majority of the dissolved parliament.

Deuba success will be in how he materializes this support and garners participation from other political forces outside parliament, firstly. Secondly, his success will depend on how his talks with the Maoists to remove impediments will conclude. Lastly, of course, his ability to conduct the elections he aborted will have to be tested.

It is certainly not a smooth sailing for Deuba too. The fact that Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh was not received by the much tipped foreign ministerial candidate B.B.Thapa indicates that party pressures would have worked to put Thapa off the list meaning that Deuba is under much pressure within his party and from the party’s he is supposed to woo to leave the portfolios dangling in order to seek their participation. Compulsions of organizational advantage of this sort in the very first place resulted in his dismissal and the failure of the last parliament to provide a national solution to mounting national problems.

Already the UML agenda for participation has a hesitant itinerary. The ambitious Madhav Nepal sees advantage in distant from outright participation while his competitors in the party squabble over rather unconditional participation or a minimum action plan on the basis of which to participate.

These riders have at the every outset put Deuba on the wrong foot and delayed the making of this government which by default influences the RPP rider that its participation is forthcoming only when the UML will help lend its presence for a majority. In that sense, the RPP outside of negotiating portfolios makes UML participation and not just support key to the success of the Deuba appointment.

And then there is the Maoist issue. It shouldn’t be forgotten that Deuba was dismissed in his second and last term because the Maoists precipitated divergent strategies in the last parliament making it untenable for Deuba who came to post elbowing his mentor Girija Koirala on grounds of talks with the Maoists. It is not necessary that the Maoists with whom his party is already said to have had talks will kowtow to Deuba who has obliged them previously with public standpoints favoring a constituent assembly.

The fact is that the current constitution talks of reforms as a monopoly of the parliament and elections can only be held to parliament under this constitution.