Koirala’s apologists argue that he has stayed on as prime minister not out of megalomania, but out of a desire to correct the oversights of the peace process.

Indeed, from the start, the peace process has been poorly conceived. At the very outset, the political parties captured a process that should have been launched with a nation-wide round-table conference. This left the country — in particular, the Janajatis (the ethnic nationalities), the women, the Dalits, and the Madeshis — battling the parties for inclusion, fair representation, local self-governance and federation. (These, the major successes of the peace process, should rightly be attributed to their activists.)

Then — with the blessings of the international community, especially India — the political parties ignored all matters pertaining to the two extant militaries, and focused exclusively on holding the Constituent Assembly election. This is the oversight that most worries Koirala’s apologists now. With 20/20 hindsight, they now see that had the Maoists been transformed into a legitimate political party (without an army of their own, that is) prior to the Constituent Assembly election, their victory would have amounted to a vote for progressive politics. Their victory would have been palatable. As things stand now, however, the Maoists remain a paramilitary organisation. Their victory carries more sinister potential, for — in their crude actions at the grassroots, if not in their fine words in the capital — they remain illiberal, even totalitarian, in vision.

Koirala’s apologists see him as the best defender of liberal democracy in Nepal, a foe of dictatorship by kings and communists alike. Indeed, this is a legacy that Koirala would be pleased to accept. But the reality has been more mixed.

... contd.