The sudden spurt in politicking is a sign that the major actors are readying themselves for constituent assembly elections. It will only intensify after the Maoists join the government and since Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Madhab Nepal are competing for the same political space, there is fierce contestation between them.

Balkhu fired the first salvo, tabling a motion to amend the interim constitution to give parliament the authority to impeach the king. This proposal is in clear contravention of the political understanding reached in New Delhi, where it was decided that the fate of the monarchy would be in limbo until the first session of the constituent assembly.

But the motion also, in a roundabout way, confers a certain legitimacy upon the king. Impeachment is reserved for positions otherwise considered inviolable. The UML wants to woo its traditional patrons in the establishment. Now in an anti-monarchy alliance, the UML is finding it difficult to prove its traditional loyalty to the palace.

Nepal has tried, by assuming the role of arch gadfly. In the morning, he threatens a walkout from Singha Darbar if the interim government is not formed by mid-March. In the afternoon, he warns that the coalition between the seven-party alliance and the Maoists will collapse if the dates for the elections aren't announced immediately. In the evening, he instructs his party nominees in government to delay the entry of Maoists in the cabinet. Then, having placed obstacles in the path of all processes that are preconditions to the constituent assembly elections, he lays all the blame on the prime minister.

The UML are past masters of realpolitik. The anti-monarchy gambit is a ploy to pre-empt republican campaign slogans. Those who begin their political education with the teachings of Mao-as most UML apparatchiks did in early seventies-invariably reach Machiavelli via Stalin, Lenin and Marx.

Comrade Dahal is still traversing through the first quadrant. He continues to believe that all the eggs in the farm must first be broken in order to make a single omelet. The Maoists want the interim parliament to declare Nepal a democratic republic immediately, even while they know that such a rash decision can have unintended consequences. But if a decidedly conformist political outfit like the UML can pretend to want the same thing, there really is no telling what Maoists could do to protect their revolutionary image.

In its own ham-handed way, the NC too is playing the politics of pretence. Sujata Koirala wants Krishna Sitaula to resign though she knows him better than anyone else in the party. Ramchandra Poudel revs the anti-king engine, while Sushil Koirala counters by a tirade against Maoist excesses, as if the two can't go together. Leaders of the rump NC-D seem oblivious to the ignominy ahead if they do not make up with their parent party.

But Gyanendra remains ahead of everyone else in the playacting game, perhaps because he is typecast as a poker player. The law of all gambling dens is that while losers may come in many guises, the house always wins. That is the position the king is manoeuvring himself into.

The Madhesi Janadhikar Forum has weakened the Maoists and brought them to the level of the UML. But for all their republican slogans, the MJF didn't even mildly criticise Gyanendra's inflammatory Democracy Day speech. Perhaps the articulate Upendra Yadav, the experienced Sitanandan Roy, and the irrepressible Kishor Bishwas just overlooked it. But now they are face to face with their own irrelevance in the wake of transporters' resistance against their general strike.

Slowly but steadily, the NC's monarchists have begun to assert themselves in intra-party squabbles. Amod Upadhyay, Govind Raj Joshi, Mahesh Acharya, and Ram Sharan Mahat have suddenly discovered that their anti-Maoist rhetoric resonates at party forums in the countryside. That wouldn't have been possible without at least tacit approval of Koirala. It seems the NC president is still firm on his conviction that ceremonial monarchy is the borderline but not quite the republic.

In the end, all politicians are actors. The one who persists wins, and the king certainly has an advantage here. Every other player knows too well not to discount the possibility of his victory. Ultimately, that is the factor that will ensure elections soonest.