The ground rules are clear. The UML has little reason to change its stance for a consensus government for the moment. Having echoed the Maoist demand for a resignation from the prime minister, UML party chairman Jhalanath Khanal was given the candidacy for the prime minister ship on grounds that he lead the consensus government. Khanal was granted both his party’s and the Maoist support but he fell short of the votes required for the consensus government. The UML need not changes its standpoint since, unless the consensus is achieved, the caretaker government is led by the UML. The Maoists, on the other hand, have been caught on the wrong foot. Their contention that Prime Minister Madhav Nepal should give way to a consensus government which would materialize immediately after his resignation has been proven wrong. The Maoists have resorted to seeking additional votes to float their chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal as candidate in the absence of consensus. Their attempts to woo the fringe and Terai parties to gain the required votes have failed. Having secured the resignation, Dahal cannot stop contesting. He may be able to float another party candidate for the post but this he can do only at the cost of his hold in the party organization. His candidacy has, in any case, not been withdrawn for the sixth round. Neither have the tarai parties changed their standpoint for granting the votes. A section of the UML and the Nepali Congress insist that they will not leave the grounds for the Maoist candidate since they should first commit to the disbandment of their ‘army’ and the YCL and return confiscated property. The organization oriented among these two parties is aware that they must rejuvenate their grass-roots displaced by the Maoists prior to a consensus not to allow the Maoists further advantage. The Congress has thus insisted that they are willing to stay in the opposition but will not concede to the Maoist candidacy. Instead, knowing the internal conflicts of the UML, they pressure the UML to abandon their stance for consensus and make a choice. The Maoists also demand the same from the UML. There is little reason for the UML to abandon this standpoint both for the sake of party unity as well as for the fact that they are already at the helm of government and will remain their unless the alternative emerges.
The stalemate thus, with also the Congress and the tarai and fringe parties already sharing government, is real and has its own compulsions. No amount of prodding is likely to change it unless another equally, if not more, advantageous option is allowed to emerge. Powers have been so concentrated in the constituent assembly that no other compulsion may be created other than themselves. The President can merely advise and nothing else. The people can merely express their dissatisfaction and nothing more. Our monopolist politicians have insured that no other institution can defy this monopoly. Talk of President’s rule or army intervention thus become unreal constitutionally. It is unlikely that government will advise the president to dissolve the house since the Maoists would readily take up the cudgel of its restoration for which they were publicly prepared at time of the extension of the date of expiry of the constituent assembly. Nor is it likely that all three parties would agree for a dissolution in preference for fresh elections since the Maoists would not like to loose their current advantage nor the others in the house aware of the grass roots. The vacuum grows. The irony is that this is not the first time and the legal repetition merely mocks the commitment of the stakeholders to the constitution. An even bigger sham lies in the fact that it is they that are charged with drafting the constitution.