Kathmandu: The confrontational mood of the parties having their representation in the now dissolved parliament continues against the King unabated.
Such a mood, to recall, is in existence from October 4 last year when the monarch summarily dismissed Sher Bahadur Deuba’s government and replaced it with Chand’s government through the use of Article 127 of the 1990 constitution.
The very installation of the Chand government by the King, the disgruntled political parties say is unconstitutional.
The King remains undeterred. So do the political parties. Thus the tussle that began last October is on with no sign of it coming to an end.
The confrontational mood of the political parties got further intensified when the Chand establishment brokered a ceasefire with the Maoists rebels which came as a bolt from the blue to the major political parties who felt that a sort of conspiracy is being hatched by those who managed the present ceasefire in order to sideline the role of the major political parties.
“The ceasefire announced by the government and the Maoists is mysterious in that the hasty manner it was announced smacks foul and unless the whole affair is made transparent, we will presume that the two forces with Guns were all set to side line the major parliamentary parties from the rest of the processes that is to ensure a permanent peace in the country”, say the NC and the UML, the two main political parties who have been visibly “opposing” tooth and nail the government-Maoists ceasefire announcement.
Political analysts who have been closely watching the government’s overtures in the recent days at inviting the major political parties for making the impending talks with the Maoists a success, remain puzzled at the negative stance taken by the political parties towards the government’s gestures which now forces them to conclude that ” one outcome of the purported peace talks has been a sense of being forlorn that seems to grip the political parties”.
To quote Bihari Krishna Shrestha, a senior anthropologist of the country, “the recent refusal of most of them (the political parties) to participate in the all-party meeting convened by the Chand government on grounds of it being ‘unconstitutional’ indicates that they would like to find themselves at the helm before they would do anything to help resolve this national crisis”.
We have reasons to believe in the analyses of Mr. Shrestha because both the NC and the UML have been demanding their role in the whole affair by being in the corridors of power and strength. For instance, while on the one hand, a crazy Koirala wishes the reinstatement of the dissolved house so that he could manage a resounding come back to the Lauda Chair kept in the Singh Durbar premises and stage yet another scam of the Lauda dimension, on the other hand, a newly communist turned capitalist UML led by Madhav Nepal prefers an all-party government which he hopes to head in case that becomes a reality so that he could offer yet another prestigious gift of the South West China Airlines dimension to the country and continue to bargain with the Maoists on its terms.
The fact is that both Koirala and Madhav Nepal would never wish a happy come back of the Maoists rebels into the country’s political mainstream for if they enter into the mainstream it is these two parties which ruined the nation mercilessly would find it very difficult to win the hearts of the voters at the elections.
More specifically speaking, it is the UML which will loose its votes at the grassroots for understandable reasons. In addition to that the congress will loose in the sense that the Maoists cadres possess the capability and the sharpness to convince the illiterate voters that it is the congress in particular and the UML in general which brought the nation to this abyss.
The fact is also that the Maoists might not sweep the elections at least for the time being, but what is for sure is that its presence at the elections will benefit the RPP for understandable reasons.
UML sources, however, claim in private that what if the monarchists and the Maoists clandestinely forge an alliance to outmanuever the congress and the communists in the impending elections.
They wish to remind that what if the present Monarch too opted to toe his father King Mahendra’s line wherein it was supposed that the late King quite often used the communists against the congress and vice versa.
But assuredly, the Maoists must not be a sort of that stuff who could so easily be used by some force and in effect the republicanists rarely join hands with the monarchists.
Be that as it may, visibly the congress and the communists appear perplexed for having been totally sidelined by both, the government and the rebels, and seem very anxious to assert their missing role in the present day’s changed political context. But the manner they are presenting their views is exposing them to the extent that one fine morning the lay men might dub them as to have been working in collaboration with some alien forces that wishes to see an unstable Nepal.
To avoid such possible criticisms which could be in the making itself, the congress and the communists, opine intellectuals, must clarify as to what to do with the already announced ceasefire? Should it be rolled back and throw the country to yet another bloody-war? Or should the country proceed to guarantee a sort of permanent peace-the guarantee of which is not possible without their active participation at the talks.