Election government in the making

April 28, 2004
2 MIN READ
A
A+
A-

Kathmandu: King Gyanendra’s nineteen-month long exercise to form a national government representative of all political forces in order to tackle the national situation remains illusive for the same reasons that contributed to the national crisis itself.

After two governments in which both Lokendra Bahadur Chand and Surya Bahadur Thapa were flipped on the evident agreement of the Congress and the UML in the absence of accord among themselves, this third attempt by the King has merely demonstrated the increased discord among and within the major parties that restrains them from meeting the King itself.

Having restrained their resources to put cadre in violent demonstrations against the King who in their say represents “regression”, they remain at odds with themselves on the essential roadmap that would be the alternative that they must represent the King in their meeting with him and so they have checkmated to prevent the meeting itself.

As now exposed forerunner, Sher Bahadur Deuba was given the nod by the UML but the commander of the five party agitations Girija Prasad Koirala prevents the UML acknowledgement from functioning to give the coveted Prime Minister’s seat to Deuba. In the absence of public UML accord, Deuba’s appointment too is now unlikely because of the possibility of its lame-duck nature that will allow the five-party agitation to continue.

The UML on the other hand restrains Girija Prasad Koirala from acknowledging an alternative to Deuba publicly keeping the five-party option in limbo.

In fact senior UML workers have coalesced to corner Madhav Nepal into an untenable position where any seeming compromise will be portrayed as failure of the leadership. On the other hand, cornered Madhav Nepal must tug Girija Koirala’s shirttail in order to restrain him from going his separate ways in vociferous opposition to a possible Deuba appointment. The glaring impasse has left the street-agitation talking tall but without direction and the five party move must now either be radicalized to shun the Palace talks or be softened to accommodate the meeting itself.

In case both do not emanate, the King must either ask Thapa to continue or must look for an election government that must hope to bend the belligerent parties by sheer strength of public participation. In all likelihood, this will be the new meeting point around which election strategies will be drawn.