We cautiously welcome the decision of CPN-Maoist to sit down for talks with the government and the four-party High Level Political Committee. Cautiously because the contours of the talks are still very vague. The hardline Maoists under Mohan Baidya have already declared their official stand not just to boycott, but to actively disrupt the November 19 polls. [break]
They have also been consistently demanding that the CJ-led government be dissolved and the scheduled polls postponed for any chance of dialogue. Why the sudden U-turn? One cannot help feel that each side (the government and HLPM constituents on one side and CPN-Maoist on the other) wants to use the talks to show how un-budging the other side is. For, at the moment, there is no question of the HLPC agreeing either to postpone CA polls or to replacing the current government. There is also little chance of the CPN-Maoist backing down on any of its core demands without meaningful concessions from the other side.
In this situation, the decision of the hardline Maoist party to sit for talks has to be taken with a pinch of salt. What are the likely points of agreement between the two sides? There seems to be very few, if any. What are the agendas they will sit down with? Again, none seems clear cut. Thus, as much as we would like to see the upcoming talks yield results, there is plenty of room for doubt. On the same day that CPN-Maoist chairman Mohan Baidya announced the decision to hold talks with government forces, he set off for a week-long trip to China. The timing is a bit odd; it does not exactly show that the ‘dash’ Maoists are serious about the talks.Moreover, there is little time to waste. Each passing day the country speculates about whether there will actually be election on the D-day will undermine the polls’ legitimacy.
For meaningful talks, CPN-Maoist has to accept that timely CA polls is the only way of bailing the country out of the predicament it now finds itself in, and that postponing the scheduled polls will pose more questions that it will help answer. It will also give new ammunition to all those forces who never wanted the CA polls in the first place, which, arguably, includes CPN-Maoist.
This gives credence to the conspiracy theories that they cannot be serious about the upcoming talks. Although the possible areas of agreements seem very few, there are some possibilities. For instance Khil Raj Regmi could resign as the Chief Justice, which has been among the chief demands of not just CPN-Maoist but also other constituents of the 33 opposing parties protesting the ‘unilaterally’ announced polls. Perhaps the voter roll update and citizenship distribution tasks could also be made more rigorous in order to minimize irregularities.
The HLPC could also go. But there is no question of postponing the already delayed polls. Such a move could irreparably damage the political parties’ image, already at an all-time low. It will also throw the country into another prolonged cycle of uncertainty in which anti-democratic elements will find plenty of space. If the polls are postponed this time, these forces will make every effort to make sure they don’t take place anytime in the near future.
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