Kathmandu: Contrary to the expectations of the agitating five party coalition now up against the monarch’s October 4 moves, the monarch appears still reluctant in seeing the leaders of the said coalition.
The King does not appear to be in a mood to yield. The Prime Minister says he will not resign. This is what has been causing panic among the five party coalition who had expected that the King upon his return from London will in one way or the other would satisfy their “logical” demands and pave the way for the elevation of one consensus candidate to the post of the nation’s prime minister.
The logic behind their assumption was not that bad. In effect a rumor that spread like a wild fire in Kathmandu’s political circuit that the King through one of his undeclared advisor and a well wisher had sent messages to different political quarters that upon his return from London, he would see the agitating leaders and set the derailed constitution in the track. The rumor also hinted that the King has tentatively agreed to form an all party government and later could also reinstate the now dissolved parliament.
In addition to this, some diplomats also met the leaders of the agitating five and assured them that the King had assured them as well that after his return to Kathmandu, Nepal’s political process will run as the agitating five wished.
The political parties had reasons to believe of the good intents of the King and they instantly toned down their agitation to hint the monarch that they now expected the King to act on their favor.
The King has not responded yet. A few powerful Ambassadors in the mean time have told the leaders of the agitating parties not to create havoc in the country given the failure of the government-Maoists talks. Some even say that the Ambassadors of the UK, US and India have told Madhav and Girija Prasad to cooperate the incumbent government of Thapa.
That the foreign envoys have told the leaders of the agitating-5 to cooperate the Thapa regime gets reflected from a new posture that Prime Minister Thapa has acquired of late. Thapa says he will not resign.
The fact is also that even if the King wishes to dismiss the Thapa government, he can’t do so that easily. Thapa government is some what different that the previous Chand’s one. For the latter is invested with the executive powers which the King had wielded at time of the Chand government.
Thapa, a known conspiratorial brain, if sacked by the King might retaliate as usual which the King apparently knows. If the King sacks Thapa using the same article 127, the sacked one, read Prime Minister Thapa, will instantly join the ranks of the agitators and might create difficult situation for the King even. The King might not invite trouble for himself.
Thapa is not resigning. The King can’t sack Thapa. All these mean that the big-5 currently in their eighth phase of their agitation, if it were at all an agitation, will have to wait for some more time to come.
Frustration and only setbacks for the agitating five party coalition at least for the moment. The agitators should see meaning in India’s joining the chorus of the United States, the United Kingdom and the rest of the developed West who have collectively been telling the agitators to restrain themselves.
The significance lies here.