When the first round of talks between the government and the insurgents took place last week, the Maoists went out of their way to show that they weren't capitulating. To prove a point, Baburam Bhattarai arrived at the venue of talks an hour later than the appointed time. He further demonstrated his importance by grandly accepting the garland of welcome from panchkanyas while brusquely refusing the candle they offered with best wishes for the success of talks.

Formal negotiations have barely begun, but the Maoist ideologue already displays the swagger of an undisputed winner. At the closing of the talks, Colonel (Retd) Narayan Singh Pun and Krishna Bahadur Mahara, spokespersons of the government and the insurgents respectively, held a joint press conference. Protocol-conscious Bhattarai thought it fit to indulge a selected audience of fawning scribes all by himself at a separate venue across the road.

It seems that the relatively weak government at the helm is making the Maoists feel that they can get away with anything. Had there been a more articulate person than Badri Prasad Mandal handling government negotiations, Baburam Bhattarai would have had to begin the talks by apologising to the nation for the mayhem of the last seven years. As things are, the befuddlement on the part of the Chand government makes it easier for the Maoists to be tackle the obvious contradction in their above-ground pronouncements.

Meanwhile, mainstream political parties have put further negotiations in jeopardy by insisting that an 'unconstitutional' government is not entitled to enter into any meaningful settlement acceptable to all the sections of society. The Maoists relentlessly fought with elected governments and chose to enter into negotiations with the king's nominees. That does put the insurgents in the dock as far as the sovereignty of the people is concerned. But the Nepali Congress and the UML must accept that the Maoist imbroglio can't be untangled without a consensus of all constitutional forces committed to peaceful transformation of Nepali politics and society.

The onus of keeping the ball of negotiation rolling, however, lies solely on the government. Sadly, the government didn't seem to have formulated even an agenda as it sat for the first round of talks. The newly formed teams of facilitators and monitors must impress upon the government the necessity of having at least a list of point for discussion before sitting down for the second round of talks.

At this moment, all eyes are on the king. Whether it's the 35-point agenda of change proposed by the UML, the 27-point demand put up by the Maoists or the 3-point rallying cry of the Nepali Congress, all these political claims require the king to respond positively for the rapid democratisation of Nepali polity. It's the king who must 'inspire' his government to take the negotiations to their logical conclusion. It's again the king who must take all constitutional forces on board, so that the political energy of the country is not wasted in mutual recrimination. The country is waiting for the next move of its constitutional monarch with cautious optimism.