This hawkishness sparked military ambitions. Gyanendra Shah’s takeover in 2002 and the 2005 coup could not have happened without the RNA’s full backing. Only when the RNA found themselves starved of foreign aid, and threatened with the end of international peacekeeping, did they abandon Shah. The (renamed) Nepal Army has since turned to Koirala for its protection.

And protect them he did. By not immediately settling the matter of the Nepal Army/People’s Liberation Army integration, by not pushing for the reform of the security sector, by not pursuing the prosecution of war crimes (all key parts of the peace process), Koirala has got the country to where it is, with an extremely weak polity sandwiched between two rival militaries.

All this, in the name of defending liberal democracy. This has been Koirala’s curious legacy — to usher in democracy, then imperil it, then rescue it over and over, sometimes from his own family members, sometimes from rival party members, sometimes from the left, sometimes from the right. Over the years, he has created as many problems as he has solved; but by tenacity alone, he has established himself as the emblematic figure of our muddled era.

He will step down now — his resignation is yet to be accepted by a president who is yet to be nominated — and then we will see if anyone else can do a better job of defending liberal democracy in Nepal.

Manjushree Thapa is the Kathmandu-based author of ‘Forget Kathmandu: An Elegy for Democracy’express@expressindia.com