The Maoists continue to frustrate both those vying to outdo them in competitive politics and the public at large. After supposedly agreeing to allow the budget to be passed last week, they changed their minds and declared their intention to protest the presentation of the same. They claim the government was announcing a budget beyond the terms that were agreed on. Since the talks were held behind closed doors they can claim what they like, and so can their political adversaries. As if allowing the substance of the wheeling and dealing to leak to the public would risk derailing the deals; it could only embarrass those engaging in them.
What followed of course has laid another black mark next to the parliamentary process in Nepal. Which is precisely what the Maoists, who had no respect for the process in any case, had in mind.
It was the former rebels who jumped the finance minister and, in the words of RJP leader Prakash Chandra Lohani, behaved like animals. But it was Lohani's description of the hapless speaker and the confusion of others in the immediate aftermath that really told the tale. In the run-up to their Gorkha plenum, the Maoist party wanted to show just what they thought of parliamentary process, even if they realised that they couldn't block the budget any longer.
The juvenile grin on the face of Narayan Kaji Shrestha as he watched Minister Pandey being manhandled by his comrades betrayed his approach to problem-solving. Like the Maoist Party at large, the Maoist vice-chairman's act is two-faced: he will travel to London with NC and UML politicians to meet British coalition members and experts on conflict resolution, thereby presenting a reasonable fa�ade to the wider Nepali polity and the world. But he will break the terms he has agreed to at the flick of a switch, thereby presenting a radical fa�ade to the Maoist cadre. Over this all is clumsy spin, characterised by remarks such as that justifying the presence of the PLA at the Gorkha plenum: "They are not practically under the Special Committee". It bears underlining � if you have in principle and in theory agreed to place the PLA under the control of the Special Committee, does this not mean one has to move towards implementing it practically by not allowing for PLA attendance?
This desire to have it both ways � to partake of the approval of both the democratic and radicalised brigades � may work temporarily for the Maoists, but it won't lead anywhere, not for them, nor for the country. You can't fool all of the people all of the time, foreigners included. Does even the Maoist leadership believe that it can find a way to capture the state by brute force and hold onto it?
One begins to suspect that it is not only the two-facedness of the Maoist leaders that is dragging the country (and the Maoist Party) down. It is the need to hold onto two different, opposed constituencies that is tearing the leadership apart. These are existential times for the Maoists.
Unfortunately, one suspects the Gorkha plenum will do little to reconcile the polarised viewpoints of Baidya and Bhattarai, because they are irreconcilable over the medium term of the peace process and constitution writing, not even in the fluid, accommodating persona of Chairman Dahal. It has to be one or the other: by now it should be clear even to the Maoist leadership which path leads to oblivion, and which to social justice, freedom and prosperity.
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