Political parties have not yet been able to elect the new chairperson for the constitution drafting committee of the constituent assembly. The post has been vacant for the two months since Madhav Kumar Nepal’s election as prime minister. Baburam Bhattarai, key ideologue of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) has already announced his candidature, while 22 other parties, part of the government coalition, insist they must have someone from their side. The election, slated for August 17, was deferred by a week till Madhav Nepal returned from Delhi, but the stalemate continues; no date has yet been fixed. Bhattarai is certainly more qualified than most others in the pro-democracy parties. But doubts about the CPN-M’s commitment to the peace and constitution-writing process — and Bhattarai’s public statements, implying that ultimately the Maoists alone will decide the content of the new constitution — have weakened his case. But almost every political party agrees that without the Maoists neither the new constitution nor the peace process can be pursued to a logical end. And the Maoists refuse to respond positively.

Prachanda, under pressure from political parties at home and resentment from India, retracted his recent speech that he made in front of 700-plus cadres in a closed-door training session that blamed an Indo-US conspiracy for his ouster as PM. But both he and Bhattarai have been repeating the accusation of destabilising Nepal openly, which is bound to have an effect. Although India’s Nepal policy is being perceived as a failure — the peace process it mediated is faltering, democracy in a practical sense has failed to take root — India did tell PM Nepal that it was ready to extend any help its northern neighbour wanted on the peace and constitution-writing process.

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