Kathmandu: Political opportunism retained as yet by the UML threatens its “Roadmap”. It has its students in partnership with the congress clamoring for republicanism in the five party agitation on the streets of which it is still a part and yet has nothing to do with the anti-monarchy slogans. The UML says, moreover, it is no longer demanding the restoration of the now dissolved parliament but continues to support the agitation programs in which the congress and other partnering parties claim that it is the solution to the present problems.
As glaringly contradictory as this itself is, it is the UML alone which sees no contradiction in any of its several demands that have emerged publicly as prescriptions to resolve the political quagmire.
Hidden in this mess is the UML’s compulsions dictated by the grassroots where the Maoists have swept their cadre carpet from the UML leadership’s feet while what is theoretically the largest standing party in the dissolved parliament must demonstrate street strength in the urban areas through the radicalization of students flirting with the republicanism that is kin to the ideologically more coherent Maoists.
Added to this problem is the organizational headway being made by the congress rivals who are hand-in-glove with the Surya Bahadur Thapa government that has used the months in office to strengthen its party and cadre coffers. The Girija Prasad Congress has, moreover, distanced itself more officially from the accommodative standpoints of the UML roadmap on the issue of constitutional re-framing that is a cornerstone of Maoists demands.
Clearly Madhav Nepal and his party cronies are on tenterhooks juggling the many faces of a roadmap which perhaps has been more frankly admitted by K.P.Woli as merely preliminary probe into the possible.
To judge, the ultimate outcome of a roadmap that has been admitted by Comrade Woli as not the penultimate shape at the moment, one has merely to view the constants. The only constant so far is found in the King’s roadmap issued some fourteen months ago where he called on all including the political parties represented in the dissolved parliament to coalesce in helping for a government that can successfully tackle the issues emanating from the constitutional crisis which has obstructed the routine holding of parliamentary elections.
It may thus be easy to make a single prediction regarding the roadmap. Its success will depend on how soon, as successfully this royal constant will be met with the UML collusion.