As the Maoists come closer to forming the government, almost two months after the poll results were out, an uneasy fear sweeps across Nepal that the new rule will be totally authoritarian. There will be no resistance, at least at the institutional level, to whatever the Maoists may want to do. Having removed the monarchy without following any norms and rules in the constituent assembly, the Maoists now want to ensure that the Nepal Army, with a strength of 93,000, is totally under their control. They are not willing to accommodate the leader of the opposition as a member in the security council which will be headed by the prime minister alongwith the defence, home and finance ministers — all likely to be from the Maoist party — as members. The council’s recommendation will be binding on the Government on deployment and other issues related to the army.
The demoralisation that the army will suffer will be enormous as the Maoists and the Nepal Army fought a bitter war for five years during the insurgency. Prachanda, in his first press conference after he surfaced over ground, said on June 2, 2006 that the Nepal Army is nothing but a loyal force to the king which is full of ‘rapists and corrupt’ people.
There is no evidence to suggest that he or his opinion has changed. And the Nepali Congress, especially Prime Minister G.P. Koirala, is playing on the fear and sentiment of the army. While Prachanda as prime minister will be in overall command of the Nepal Army, he also continues as the supreme commander of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) that has about 19,000 verified ‘combatants’ whose integration in the Nepal Army will be a priority for the new government.
A security council without anyone from the non-Maoist parties will give absolute power to the government to settle the issue even if that means further humiliating and demoralising the Nepal Army. The revolt in two units of the Armed Police Force (APF) — the only para-military force in the country — has further injected fear in the minds of the non-Maoist parties and the army that the Maoists have already been able to penetrate the security outfit. They fear that handing over the army to the Maoists may trigger such revolts, and engineering them will be much easier especially after the Maoist combatants get entry there.
