Maoist protest

The Unified CPN (Maoist) resumed their over two-month long protest program, which they had suspended for a month, from Friday. That’s sad given the crunch period that the country has entered into for drafting the new constitution. This is the time when the parties should have strengthened their ties, renewed their commitment to writing the constitution and taking the peace process to a logical end and gotten their acts together. Unfortunately, they are headed for a conflict that is only likely to deepen the mistrust between themselves, making agreements on thorny and complicated issues of constitution writing, such as the system of governance and federalization of the state, even more difficult.



The Maoists said that they resumed the protest as the government “failed” to find an amicable solution to the issue of “civilian supremacy” within the agreed deadline. For the record, what the parties had agreed was “to take initiative to resolve the issue”, which implies that they could or could not have reached an agreement on the issue by the end of the deadline. Moreover, the issue is already losing its relevance. The man the Maoists accuse of undermining a civilian government and attempting a coup – Army Chief Rookmangud Katwal – is going on customary leave from Monday, a month before he retires from the post. Katawal will still be donning his uniform but the second-in-command in the Nepal Army, Chhatraman Singh Gurung, is taking charge of the 92,000-plus strong army. With this development, the Maoists’ argument that the country is headed for “military supremacy” and that it needs a course correction is gradually losing steam. The sooner the Maoists realize this, the earlier the country will find a way out of the current political impasse.



Irrespective of what the Maoists’ public stances are, they are – especially Maoist Chairman Puspha Kamal Dahal – desperate to lead the government. Make no mistake; the Maoists want to lead a national government at the earliest and the two-month long protest program was only a strategic move to prop up their claim for the same. But it’s here they are miscalculating. They seem to believe that if they launch a protest program, stall the process of discharging the disqualified PLA combatants and defer any decision on the fate of the qualified combatants, challenge the recent efforts to enforce law and order and obstruct the constitution-writing process, the other parties will be forced to give in. It’s actually the other way round. If they cooperate on all these issues and then take a stance that a final decision on the constitution should be reached only after the formation of a national government, the other parties will find it difficult to resist for too long.

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