The seven parties deliberated on the extension of UNMIN's mandate until they were blue in the face. What they should have been more worried about was their own mandate.

These unelected, unrepresentative leaders, either catapulted themselves to power by killing lots of people or had power thrust upon them after the April Uprising. The Six Plus One like to say that they are where they are because of the sacrifices made during the pro-democracy movement that brought down the king. What they forget is that it was the people who made the sacrifices, and they have to go back to the people to seek a fresh mandate.

By delaying elections time and again on one pretext or another they have proven themselves to be unaccountable, irresponsible and devoid of a democratic culture. Of course they have elaborate pretexts: demands for full proportional representation, lack of security, declaring Nepal a republic first because the king will try to rig polls. Actually there is only one reason they don't want elections: because they think they will lose. The Maoists know that they will never have the one third of seats in parliament that they awarded themselves. The NC is sure to lose its commanding position over the government and legislature. Only the UML could be expected to gain from elections, but even they weren't campaigning seriously enough.

The problem with this behaviour is that our cynical politicians think they can get away with it, they think they can fool all the people all the time. But just as we didn't tolerate a royal-military dictatorship and rose up against it, the Nepali people will not tolerate an indefinite seven-party dictatorship. The seven-party alliance may have been able to redeem itself and gain a degree of legitimacy if, even if it couldn't hold elections, it showed improved governance and efficient service delivery. But even here it has failed miserably: the tarai is out of bounds, law and order has never been this bad even during the conflict years, the petroleum shortage is growing worse, garbage is piling up and corruption is a way of life. The people's verdict is that this coalition is unfit to govern.

The only thing they expect this government to do is to keep its promise to announce an election date and then step down.