Road Map stirs new possibilities

January 14, 2004
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Kathmandu: The Congress-Girija had it going. Mr. Koirala was able to admit publicly that he had endorsed the King’s appointment of Surya Bahadur Thapa as Prime Minister. Mr. Koirala had made public his intention of facing the polls if the Thapa cabinet conducted it. The Koirala congress was taking to the streets in an agitation declaring the King’s move under article 127 as unconstitutional and he was further able to mobilize student cadre after government intentionally provoked a student demonstration. The congress, by government action, is able to give impetus to the sagging streets by raising the pitch against the King with its student vanguard now attracting other partisan professionals.

The Thapa government had it going. Having called the Chand government the King’s serf, it has flipped into power after, essentially, non-cooperation by the major political parties forced the Chand resignation. Thapa, unlike Chand, was allowed a freehand in cabinet formation. Thus emerged a well-knot seven-man cabinet all from the RPPs Thapa coterie. The government could strengthen its nationwide organization through nominations in representative institutions and declare intent of elections having secured promise of participation from parties who would otherwise have been questioned for their democratic credentials.

It is this stalemate of the past months that appears to have been broken by the series of separate audiences the King has granted the mainstream party leaders. Mr. Koirala has shrugged his audience as insignificant and prefers to project indifference insisting that the King reconvene the dissolved parliament as the only way out. Prime Minister Thapa also insists that the audience is routine and doesn’t in anyway affect his office. Lost in the process is the talk of the much promised cabinet expansion.

The fact is that realignments are underway. In the first place, Mr. Thapa’s own RPP party leadership has undercut a permeable attempt by government to use its office and election opportunities to usurp the leadership or splinter the party. Previous public experience makes it possible to see a splinter repetition underway in the RPP with initiatives by the party establishment. Mr. Thapa will not be backed by the sanctity of his office.

Political motion might also be seen in the growing concurrence between and among the UML, the Deuba congress and the RPP establishment who now appear to concur that the agreement on an all-party government is vital to tackling the Maoist issue after which only the restoration of normalcy and elections is possible. It is not lost on the public that this seeming concurrence has emerged publicly close to and after the Royal audience.

The most outstanding signal of the flutter in Nepali politics is the new Roadmap proposed by the UML which has already triggered an exchange of words and postures between the congress-G and the UML who together lead a vociferous street campaign targeting the King. The UML is caught in an unenviable position. It has to counter Girija charges of turning its back on its earlier commitments for an all-party government under its leadership which was to have restored parliament. Its leadership has to convincingly distance itself from the anti-monarchy tirade it helped encourage on the streets to secure the all-party participation in a government that now it commits itself to help form in accordance to a Road-Map which also accommodates demands for constitutional change in order to woo the Maoists.

At this particular juncture, the UML is literally juggling its contradictory standpoints in order to bring itself back into the center of things that the Thapa government and the Koirala congress had been shaping.

The compulsions for the UML are many. Its grassroots have been virtually stripped by a more ideologically coherent Maoists movement. Its financial viability has been severely restricted by a single none-month term in government after which its coalition attempts were depleted either by the Bam Dev splinter or by the election under Girija partnership. Currently too, its position as the largest party is dissolved parliament after the Deuba-Girija splinter is being gradually eroded by a six-month Girija-Thapa initiative. And so the UML has moved promising no change in standpoints but in effect auguring change.

Clearly, the UML initiative to achieve success must be tempered by new realities. The House stands closed and so too its claim as largest parliamentary party. It must now be prepared to de-link itself with the Girija-Thapa intrigue. This would mean that what the UML will help forge is a government of multi-diversity rather than an all-party government now that the congress and Thapa may be expected to boycott it. Whether this can be achieved by the UML retaining the leadership of the new government is doubtful. At best, its initiatives may be rewarded in representation and its very materialization.