The Maoists will soon be leading a government, and whether or not they do that with inside or outside support of the NC, UML or MJF is not so important in the larger scheme of things.

There are many reasons why the result of the 10 April constituent assembly election was a landmark, but the most important is that it was a popular rejection of the status quo. Yes, there was some cheating. Yes, there was blatant and widespread pre-poll intimidation of voters by the YCL, but the Maoists won fair and square.

There are plenty of lessons for the EC so mistakes this time are not repeated in the next general elections. The excesses in the campaign period by over-zealous young communists need to be meticulously documented. Lapses in pre-poll security has to be studied. There have to be safeguards in place to assure voters that their ballots are secret and sacrosanct. Electronic ballots must be made nationwide next time and there must be provisions for absentee voting.

There are three weeks after the EC declares the results till the time the constituent assembly meets. That isn't much time to sort out procedural issues like the exact sequence of events in replacing the monarchy with a new republican head of state, agreeing on a workplan for the assembly and setting up a new government.

There will be strong temptation to be distracted by who gets what ministry, whether or not other parties join in and if so what portfolios they get to keep. We have to get out of the rent-seeking mentality that has traditionally made the division of the spoils all-important after an election.

Much more important this time, if this is truly a New Nepal, is not who gets to be ministers, but how they perform. Is there a proper policy framework guiding them? It would restore confidence in the Nepali people if the Maoists stayed above the wheeling-dealing to focus on immediate relief and give the people a tangible peace dividend. The smaller parties must also resist the urge to make political capital out of the Maoist discomfiture with being in the driving seat.

That would buy time for medium-term goals like massive job-creation through food for work in infrastructure. In the longer-term, we need a favourable investment climate so investors pour in money to develop hydropower, set up manufacturing bases to exploit Nepal's comparative advantage. We need peace and development on a war footing, as it were.

From what we've heard so far, the Maoists seem to broadly know what is wrong with the country. But they'll need help in identifying what needs to be done, and be shown how to do it without making big mistakes.