For members of the restored parliament, it's now business as usual. Each is aware that in parliamentary tradition, not a paisa of allocation can be changed unless the government changes. Yet, in ritualistic fashion, the honourable members discuss the budget and refuse to accept that they have outlived their usefulness.

Meanwhile, the prime minister has given government secretaries a two-month deadline to come up with a "vision" for the next decade. Perhaps our octogenarian premier fails to recognise that his only brief is to lead the country towards constituent assembly elections.

On the other side of the political aisle, the Maoists want to put the monarchy in suspended animation till the formation of the constituent assembly.The 'international community' is under the impression that the worst in Nepal is over: civil liberties have been restored, the army is back in barracks, and the parliament has established its supremacy over the monarchy among other institutions of the state. All that remains to be done now is demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration of rebels to transform the Maoists into UML cadres.

It wasn't the Nepal Army that coerced the Maoists into negotiating a settlement, and the dips know that. They also realise that both sides are capable of scuttling the peace process. But like most of us, they see what they want to see and fail to read the undercurrent of discontent.

The government is unhappy with parliamentarians, MPs aren't satisfied with the executive, the rebels aren't pleased with either of them and the nascent civil society is dissatisfied with the collective behaviour of all the movers and shakers that have downgraded the agenda of peace and democracy.

On the right side of the centre, the two Congresses are contemplating a merger-unification is a misnomer that hides the difference in their political approaches. Koirala has prophesied that the marriage of convenience will materialise before Dasain. If this development were to lull the NC into complacency, the issue of constituent assembly would be put on hold. The resulting triumph may push the rebels into a corner.

On the UML side, it's not all hunkydory either. The recently concluded central committee meeting of the UML has decided to form a republican alliance of like-minded parties on the condition that the fate of the monarchy will be subjected to a referendum. What this actually means is that the UML will guarantee the survival of monarchy (it's difficult, though not impossible, to abolish monarchy through a plebiscite) if it is accommodated back (the party often worked with the palace in the past) into the royalist camp.

The republican slogan seems to be a ruse to delay the constituent assembly elections by harping upon the redundant concept of referendum. By blathering incessantly about the importance of October Revolution or the inevitability of the next urban uprising, the Maoist leadership has blithely walked into the trap of those who want to maintain the status quo in the country.

And, suddenly it has become fashionable to disparage the Maoists. This may push the comrades to floww through on their threat to launch a peaceful urban uprising. From there it isn't far to the jungle.

A re-adoption of a constituent assembly program by all parties is the only method of stepping back from the edge of yet another abyss. Perhaps the civil society movement that has kicked off again will succeed in bringing the lost agenda back into circulation.