"There can't be a crisis next week. My schedule is full."
- Henry Kissinger

If only the eh-maleys didn't have the if-we-don't-win-we-won't-play mentality, we'd have a government by now. If only Lotus Flower was less allergic to Laldhoj, the Maoists would have won hands down the vote in parliament on Wednesday. No wonder Twitchy was twitching more than usual as he nervously watched closeups of himself in the newly installed parliamentary cctv screen as the vote neared. BRB may have always wondered how his nemesis always seems to be one step ahead of him and knows his next move. Now we have evidence. PKD has been caught in flagrante peeking at Baburam's SMS messages.

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Those who watched Wednesday's high drama at the Great Hall of the People will all agree that it showed Nepali politics at its all-time best. No one in the world can stab each other in the back as we do. All three candidates for prime ministership were proposed by their bitterest rivals within their own parties, PKD by BRB, RCP by SBD and JNK by MKN. It didn't mean they had all buried their hatchets, however. It showed that the three proposed their arch enemies as candidates only after they were certain they all had the chance of a snowflake in hell of winning the vote. And so it turned out.

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The whole point about Wednesday's pseudo-drama was to waste time to buy time to haggle some more about who gets to power. You could say the netas just got themselves another 48 hours to do some more horse-trading, but then that would be an insult to horses. You could say Nepali politics is beginning to resemble a bull-fight, but the oxen would take umbrage. Some may say it's like a cock-fight, but that would be a slur on all you good roosters out there. You could say the Mau Mau are behaving like wolves in sheep's clothing, but that would belittle both predator and prey.

It looks like it will be the Madhesi Front that will be the kingmakers on Friday. And there is some major seduction going even as we speak as the Tarai peahens are wooed by the two baddie and kangresi peacocks. Apologies to both fowls. And before the serpents get upset at the speciesism, let me quickly say that the CA does resemble a snake pit. Henceforth, all hyenas, pigs, jackals (and yes even us asses) want to issue a public disclaimer to the effect that all resemblance that Nepal's human politicians, living or dead, bear with us animules is purely coincidental.

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Actually, the contestants should all stay away from Friday's Finals of the All Nepal Free-style Wrestling Championships being beamed live from the BICC. We can do perfectly well without a prime minister or a cabinet because we haven't really had a government for a year and we didn't really miss it that much. Governments are invariably corrupt, inefficient and prone to making mistakes. So if we don't have a government, we can't make mistakes.

Of all the speakers on Wednesday, there was one plain-speaking neta who stood out for his common sense and articulated what a majority of the Nepal people think: Chitra Bahadur KC. He refudiated the tripartite trinity in no uncertain terms on behalf of the people. This man is my nominee for PM, that is if the Ass can't be PM himself. Pity Chitra Bahadur's party has only four votes.

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If the three main political parties showed as much planning, foresight, strategic thinking and determination to improve the country's economy as they have done to fight each other tooth and nail to get to the prime minister's seat this week Nepal would be a member of the OECD by now.

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Early warning: there will be another cash crunch by Dasain and it doesn't look like we will get our passports even by December. The French winner of the MRP was the one that was printing our banknotes last year. And they sent it to Kathmandu by ship via Coalcutta. Is the intention to get us to switch to IC and get Indian passports?

ass(at)nepalitimes.com