Kathmandu: The continued paralysis in parliament and the adamancy on the part of the opposition to force Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala to resign on demand has resulted in a stalemate. A month long stalemate of this nature has only naturally precipitated search for a way out. Several all-party meets have not yielded much. The Girija lobby insists on the functioning of the parliamentary process. The opposition insists that Mr. Koirala has no moral grounds to stay after his minister resigned on the Lauda affair. Curiously, public apathy over the whole process has denied the opposition public interest in the effort to raise the streets against the government. The deadlock is thorough.

It is not thus by any chance that people are seeking options to the stalemate outside the parliamentary process. While it becomes increasingly likely that Prime Minister Girija may seek resort to yet another election to break the stalemate, its negative impact on the democratic process as such may be even more compelling, the opposition say. Warnings that his own party may find differences on the issue appear a hindrance so far. But noneless than the Prime Minister knows that it is he who has to seek an outlet from the current impasse.

Not surprisingly again, public concerns over Maoists gain in the country hardly figure in government and opposition actions. Maoists reaction to government gestures for talks have at best been lukewarm. The recent government release of jailed Maoists names have been dismissed summarily by Maoists leaders as containing merely three of the hundreds claims by the insurgents with the government. It is possible here to recall former Premier Krishna Prasad Bhattarai’s response some two years or so ago with his statement, “they have already been killed”. Juxtapose this with continuous human rights organizations’ claims of violations and the picture may be clearer.

What should be clearer still regardless of the charged media environment playing up parochial partisan interest even on the Maoists issue is the fact that both center and peripheries suffer both from government and Maoists excesses with a virtual breakdown of the law and order situation. Excesses have been committed in an environment of opportunism. The organized political sector has not been able to take up this issue at all.

It is this opportunism that is being expensive for the country. Current fluidity and lack of direction dictates that immediate benefits be sought from office. Cadre demands this attitude also. Corruption therefore has reached even to the grassroots of the public sector and the common man thus becomes the prey. It is those who give that can take and it is those who take that give. It is not surprising therefore that the disorganized common man seeks solace. More and more, it is the Maoists at the local level who is providing answers to the common man’s search for authority, justice, fairplay, and delivery. Surprisingly Nepali democracy is unable to reflect this in public.