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Back to the Palace
With the royal proclamation of February 1, 2005 the King has personally taken the responsibility to restore the peace and democracy in the country by sacking Sher Bahadur Deuba from the post of the Prime Minister and forming a new council of ministers under the chairmanship of the King himself.
It was the second time that Deuba was sacked from the post and for both the occasions the reason for the sacking was the same - he was not able to arrange for holding the general elections within the stipulated time. The King was specific in his proclamation about it and pointed out that the government headed by Deuba was wasting time only in rhetoric about holding elections without making any concrete progress in this regard.
As may be recalled, Deuba had given the Maoists till mid-January to come for negotiations failing which he would declare the dates for the elections. But the rebels did not pay any heed to Deuba threat. The time after the deadline was over was marred by different opinions from the partners in the coalition government headed by Deuba. Clearly, he had failed in the major tasks (restoring peace and holding elections) entrusted to him. Deuba had also earned people’s wrath by taking two unpopular decisions early January. He had increased the petroleum price and the rate of Value Added Tax.
That means the debate about whether the elections will be held and when is put to the rest for the time being. Now the King has promised to complete the tasks of restoring peace and holding elections within three years. Though the detailed plan about how it is going to be done is not spelled out in the royal proclamation, a state of emergency has been imposed suspending a number of clauses in the Constitution related to different types of freedoms. This grants the security forces more power to take on the insurgency.
The move now also paves the way for the Maoist rebels to come to the negotiating table. As may be recalled they were expressing their reluctance to negotiate with the earlier governments because, as they insisted, the actual powers for meaningful negotiations rested with the King only. The new Home Minister has said, the government will soon call the Maoists to come for talks. Now as the King himself has headed the government, they will either have to come to the negotiating table or feign another pretext. It is also likely that the newly changed situation may trigger an internal strife across different factions within the Maoist party. If such a dispute emerges, it may weaken the rebel outfit and that will help the security forces to crush the insurgency.
With the declaration of emergency, the government has also banned strikes in different economic activities. Because of this, different business organizations have issued statements welcoming the royal takeover. Their hope is based on the logic that if the new developments are successful to restore peace by suppressing the insurgency, it may help revive the economy. The strike that the Maoists had called for February 3 and 4 was a total failure.
Meanwhile, Nepal and India have reached closer to signing two treaties – one for the extradition of criminals and the other for jointly developing a mega power project in the river Karnali.
In the anti-corruption drive of the Commission for Investigation Against Abuse of Authority (CIAA), the special court has convicted Ramagya Prasad Chaturvedi who had headed different government departments and corporations in the past. Also the Revenue Investigation Department has issued arrest warrant against Mathura Prasad Maskey, a liquor tycoon, on the charge of massive revenue fraud. However, both of them are absconding.
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