These foreign junkets are taking place at a critical time in Nepal’s political process. Consider this: Parliament remains stalled after the fracas in the House; the date for UNMIN’s departure from Nepal (January 15) is fast approaching; and the trust level among the political parties has reached rock bottom in the wake of the Maoist plenum. All these only remind one of the gravity of the political situation, but the politicians pretend not to have understood this. If the political parties fail to conclude the peace process and reach a broader agreement on constitution-writing and power-sharing by January 15, the current political process will start to unravel, giving way to utter anarchy. We had hoped that the flurry of political negotiations, which were stalled for 10 days to provide time to the Maoist brass to participate in their party plenum, would start immediately after that event.
But now that’s not going to be the case. Four of the five senior UML leaders who had taken part during several rounds of talks held before and after Dashain will be abroad at the same time. So there is no way the negotiations will begin until they are back. Defending his foreign junkets just before leaving for Cambodia, PM Nepal told journalists that his absence would not affect talks among the political parties. We had hoped that he had a greater evaluation of himself. If he really thinks that a multi-party dialogue on issues as crucial as the peace process and constitution-writing can start and conclude without him and the top leaders of his party, he is only devaluing his own post and his party. We urge all the leaders to shorten their junkets and resume talks as soon as possible.
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