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Those of you who have by now given up trying to make sense of it all have my deepest sympathies. As an Ass fan wrote in to say last week: these guys seem to be achieving previously unseen levels of uselessness. But what can they do? They were raised in our traditional culture, which values back-stabbing, procrastination, and never doing today what can be done tomorrow.
The Interim Constitution was signed at 4am, the elections were postponed twice, UNMIN's mandate has now been extended four times, it once took two months to form a cabinet. When in doubt, extend and prolong is our national credo, so it is no surprise that when push came to shove, the political parties decided to rejuvenate themselves so they could live to fight another day.
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The trouble is that no one knows what the real agreement is. Oh yes, they got the three point resolution in writing, but how many unwritten sub-points are there to Point No. 3? There seem to be at least six sub-clauses to Point No. 2. Then the question: does No. 3 follow No. 1 or not? It is now clear that a lot of it all hinges on what transpired in the
critical meeting between KPO and PKD on Friday. Did KPO ghusao the word 'agreeing to resign' into the resolution and then verbally assure him that he'd get Makunay's resignation 'within five days'? Well, five days passed and when there was no sign of MKN budging, an agitated Comrade Bhayankar called Comrade KP from an unknown Ncell number reminding him rather testily about their conversation. Oli replied "Yeah, he'll resign in five seconds, not five days, if you first demobilise your fighters." At which point Awesome hung up.
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The leaders stayed up all night hammering out the deal on Friday, but on Saturday they were all there at the Sainik Munch bright eyed and bushy tailed for the Republican Day parade. What was surprising to most of us Asses out here was not that nothing has changed since the monarchy days when helicopters dropped rose petals and the Rangers marched past to commemorate the king's happy birthday. What got our goat is that at a time of great national crisis, the president, prime minister, chairman of the assembly and other heads of constitutional organograms had three hours to burn watching kids performing wushu and taekwondo.
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And what are they now going to do with all the medals that folks have refused? One idea is to send the metal to a foundry and turn them into gun barrels. The other is to henceforth only give medals posthumously so all those thankless living heroes don't have a chance to turn down the honour that the nation has bestowed upon them. The great thing about dead people is that they don't complain.
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One guy they missed giving a medal to, and someone who would have grabbed the limelight without any hesitation, was His Omniscient Rishi Dhamiro. The man has done more for the protection of democracy and the free press in Nepal by arranging regular cockfights at the Reporters' Club than anyone else. But wait, Sishi Gamala seems now to be tired of hanging on to the coat-tails of politicians and has made a debut in the Rastriya Git music video. As long as they don't allow him to sing in it.
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Comrade Superfluous has now decided that his dream of staging a comeback as prime minister is receding fast. Which appears to be why even his opposition to the candidature of arch nemesis, BRB, has waned. He now has
his sights on pushing a presidential system through the state restructuring committee into the new constitution, and then in the first general election, getting himself elected as Nepal's first Executive President. This way, he keeps his campaign promise of becoming the first elected president of the Republic of Nepal and he can also mould himself in the image of Leaders Great and Dear, the father and son Kims of Northernmost Korea.
So long as PKD doesn't get the idea that the role of an Executive President is to execute people, the Ass has no objection.
ass(at)nepalitimes.com
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