The learned justices of the Supreme Court showed this week that they are not only well-versed in legal niceties, but they also have a lot of common sense. They agreed, as we had exhorted in this space last week, that Nepal should be run through the people's mandate and not by settling political scores in the courts.

The precedent has now been set, and past aberrations have been corrected. The Supreme Court unanimously told our political leaders: it's all very well for you to squabble over power, but keep us out of it. Don't ask us to arbitrate when you can't get along. You are directly answerable to the people who elected you.

Unfortunately, it is of little comfort to the Nepali people that the justices ruled as they did. We are still stuck with the same politicos. And we know it for a fact that Prime Minister Deuba did not go to the royal palace to dissolve parliament and call for general elections on the night of 22 May because of his deep commitment to democracy, but because he was pushed to the wall by his nemesis, Girija Prasad Koirala.

The Deuba camp may be uncorking the bubbly, but they have no reason to. We don't see how the rump Nepali Congress that Deuba leads is going to have any kind of showing in the November elections-even if he has the government machinery under his command. In fact, it may be better for Deuba to listen to his mentor who broke his vow of silence on Wednesday to declare that there was still time for the Nepali Congress to reunite. Optimist.

All eyes now are on the Election Commission and what it decides to do with the tree. And will the Nepali Congress finally be able to see the forest for the trees? If we were either faction of the Nepali Congress (good thing we aren't) we'd have second thoughts about retaining the name and symbol of such a discredited party. Especially for an election where the only symbol that seems to matter is a socket bomb.

The question now is not if elections will be held, but how. Who is going to come to vote if the booths are located behind three layers of barbed wire inside the barracks of the district headquarters? Which political leader is going to be seen campaigning in the villages where the Maoists are running agricultural communes and where (except for the Nepali currency) there is no other sign of the presence of His Majesty's Government? Will there be voter turnout when fear and terror stalks the land? Will the polls be an electoral version of the SLC exams?

So far our politicians seem to be in a time-warp. They are behaving as if the elections are happening in normal times. On the other hand, we see some politicians jostling each other to be the ones responsible for restoring peace before polls. No one wants to give anyone else the chance to take the credit for ending the war. This is the reason for all the back-channel peace feelers to people who carry Rs 5 million ransoms on their heads-dead or alive.

The paradox here is that the party that doesn't believe in democracy is the one that will determine whether these elections can be held. By holding a gun to our heads, the Maoists want to dictate the future. If they decide to disrupt this election, then that is the final proof-if proof is still needed-that there can be no compromise with people who don't believe in compromises.