While NC’s stance that the Maoists should be ready to settle contentious issues – primarily that of former rebels based in UN-monitored cantonments – is right, the party is wrong in setting this as a pre-condition to pulling out of the prime ministerial race. The position is akin to a doctor correctly diagnosing an ailment but prescribing wrong medicines. Such a stance will serve no purpose other than widening the differences between parties in an already fragmented and polarized political landscape. Since the current process to find a prime minister has already failed, we urge NC to be sensible enough and sit down with the UCPN (Maoist) and CPN-UML to seek a workable alternative process.
But once the NC pulls out of the race, the Maoists must be ready to draw a time-bound roadmap to settle the future of their combatants, something that they had pledged to complete just a few months after the first sitting of the Constituent Assembly (CA) on May 28, 2008. After pulling out of the ongoing race for prime minister, the Maoists may be reveling in the thought that they have done their part in saving the nation from witnessing meaningless rounds of elections but they must not overlook the fact that the genesis of the present problem lies in their sheer and stubborn reluctance to give up instruments of violence under their possession whether it be in the form of Young Communist League or the former fighters.
While UML’s idea to remain neutral until there is a guarantee of a consensus government may have germinated because of differences among its party leaders rather than a genuine concern for completing the constitution-writing process or concluding the peace process, it now seems that it is the only meaningful option that the political parties are left with considering that we have hardly another eight months left before the CA’s extended mandate expires. Paudel must therefore pull out of the race, Maoists must show genuine commitment to removing the thorns on the way to achieving the objectives with which the CA was envisioned and both these parties must work in tandem with CPN-UML to form a consensus government. Any other option at this juncture will simply not be sustainable.
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