A poorly managed transition

As Nepal slowly prepares for polls, that's the people's verdict on the last six years

The foreign ministry vetoed a meeting ambassadors from the EU and Scandinavian countries, as well as the US, wanted with the president. Soon after the meeting was cleared by the foreign ministry, the chief of protocol approached the president's secretariat with a verbal message that the prime minister and the deputy PM, both from the Maoist party, wanted the president to put it off.

The ambassadors had informed the foreign ministry they would be discussing the terms of reference for the proposed commission on human rights abuses during the decade-long conflict, with the power to recommend general amnesty for all, by which almost all top Maoist leaders would not have to face trial. The government knew that even a "sympathetic hearing" by the president would defame the PM and the Maoist party.

The end of the prolonged honeymoon between the international community and the Maoists comes when the four big parties are being blamed for the prevailing mess and are engaged in a bitter fight, with the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist announcing they will agitate to seek PM Baburam Bhattarai's ouster.

The deposed former king, Gyanendra, got rousing receptions during his visit to the mid-western districts — indicating that a large number of people are fed up with the parties. That also means Nepal has a much wider presence of traditional forces, albeit scattered and disorganised, and that no solution can be found by keeping them out of the political process. "Regressive forces are trying to strike back because the parties are not cooperating with me," Bhattarai said, annoyed by the crowd Gyanendra was drawing. But the Maoists, like the other big parties, are now neither respected nor feared. The international community has only now come to realise that diminishing public trust in Maoists and other parties was based on a real assessment of their commitment to peace, constitution and democracy.

... contd.

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