The never ending power tussle

The three main political actors, the King, the parliamentary parties and the Maoists have plainly speaking contributed to the political slide of the country of late. Each in its own way and size has added to compound the already overly confused Nepali politics. Each can’t escape from their share of the blame time permitting should the country restore normalcy from the state wherein the country has, it appears, been deliberately thrown to suffer pain.

To begin with, the King. The King though has been ventilating his heart that he was committed to the system and that he would not deviate from the roles stipulated for a constitutional monarch in the present order. We having nothing to suspect the very intents of the King regarding his commitments towards the system now in force, but at the same time we have miserably failed to understand as to why the monarch is distancing his meetings with the leaders of the political parties and that too collectively which is what they wish in effect? What factors restrict His Majesty in receiving the agitating political parties is beyond our imagination. Nor do we understand as to why His Majesty the King is hesitant in making an address to the nation and tell the national population that the executive powers which he had assumed in his personality on October 4 have automatically gone to Singh Durbar? There is some logic when the political parties demand that the King could do so to assure the national population and the political parties. After all what is the harm if His Majesty tells this through national broadcast and telecast?

Without suspecting the credentials of the constitutional monarch we wish the monarch now as the guardian of the nation himself initiated a process that cools down the agitating political parties. What is the harm if the guardian takes up the lead for the people, the lay men in effect believe in him much more than the leaders of the political parties now creating "democratic furore"?

The political parties. The pillars of the democratic system indeed but who acted like the looters of the system. All in the name of a system that has no parallels in the systems now available in the globe. The Lauda democracy, the Dhamija democracy and the China-South West democracy. These were the patterns of democracy we the people were forced to witness. Corruption, power-mongering, nepotism and defining the constitution suiting to their own personal political interests remained the hallmarks of the system that unfortunately produced only two leader, Koirala and Madhav Nepal, both considered to be the architect in having "deformed" the system now in place. The deformation and the aberrations that they brought to the system , they did so all in the name of democracy. That was indeed great of them. But yet in the name of democracy the people half-heartedly listen to their disgusting gaffe. But then yet these two and their followers gave a direction to the system. Good or bad, they are still our national heroes and one is forced to treat them as national heroes. Unfortunate though it is but yet in the name of democracy we have to bear with this "democratic burden".

We salute you, Nepali leaders! for having given a shape to the system that you restored in 1990. Concurrently, we curse ourselves that we got leaders like you. Shame on us that we elected you to power and will perhaps elect you again. Tryst of destiny indeed.

Now the Maoists. We salute your conviction that you wish to see a Nepali society wherein all share the fruits of development. We salute your cause for the oppressed and the rejected and the dejected ones who were basically denied participation in the scheme of things prevailing in the country under Koirala, Madhav and Deuba. We have all the praise for your efforts that you have been talking to establish a sort of Ram Rajya in the country. However, we equally wish to keep a comfortable distance for your acts of violence and terror that you exhibited all along the past seven years of your struggle with the state. We differ on the violent modalities you acquired to press the State to get your demands met with. Many people admired your courage until you took the path of violence. The message should be clear to you. However, we wish to see you back in the nation’s political mainstream. We wish not to see your rhetoric close to that of the UML party which too were presumably not less "hot and dangerous" than your in its preliminary days. Today’s UML is the Messiah of the capitalists, to put it mildly.

The conclusion. What we could conclude from the above mentioned write-ups is that the King, though a constitutional monarch, wishes to "assert" some exclusive powers so that he can "tame" the "errant" politicians and this he wishes apparently to do in the name of democracy.

The politicians now appear to wish to even curtail the "rights" of the monarch so that they can twist the system as and when they need it and this they wish to do in the name of democracy.

The Maoists definitely wish to emerge as a formidable force so that they can ultimately establish their rule and that they wish to accomplish in the name of the people and the system whose model is yet to be defined.

Thus the tussle is on.

The fact is that the people in the process have been forced to pull their hairs. This they will have to do ultimately out of frustration and never ending power struggle in between the three.

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