 SUBHAS RAI |
Madhab Nepal: Pushpa Kamal Dahal accepted me as presidential candidate only a couple of days ahead of the voting in the CA. At 11PM we were told the agreement would be signed the following morning. But they betrayed us. I had told Prachanda the issue of president would be a test to improve relations between two parties. But the Maoists have a use-and-throw policy. They used Gyanendra, and remember Prachanda used to say royalists are true nationalists?
What now?
We have shifted to majority politics from consensus politics. The Maoists started it by breaking off our agreement. There are no permanent friends and foes in politics, so things can change. But the Maoists squandered their opportunity, they lost the moral high ground. Today they are begging for the posts that they were earlier offering to other parties. Still, we have to give them a chance to form the government if they can. If they form the government, why not have Ram Bahadur Thapa as prime minister instead of Prachanda or Baburam? He is not tainted, we don't know of him visiting embassies, he is clean. He is even good-looking.
The Maoist want the NC-UML-MJF alliance dismantled.
Just face-saving rhetoric, it's a bluff. They can't wait to form the government. This alliance should continue and other parties should join in, the Maoists too. The alliance is not unnatural, it is the natural outcome of Maoist double-crossing. Drafting the constitution is now the goal of all parties, the Maoists should form the government and we should move ahead with the constitution-building process.
With you and Koirala out of the picture, what will be the fate of mainstream politics?
It shouldn't affect the peace process. I will play a positive role whether I am in or out of politics. I have asked the Maoist leaders to read the history of Peru and Cambodia. Nepali communism is not extreme left, it can't move towards totalitarianism.
How difficult will it be to agree on a government?
It is complicated. There is this trend of bargaining for key posts even if parties do not have a claim. I don't know where the bargaining will take the country. There has to be political stability for two years. It is because the Maoists were bad losers that the process got complicated, they have to learn to get used to defeats.
Why did your party lose the CA election?
First we were too tolerant towards the Maoists and wanted to prevent them from walking out of the peace process. Second, we were too confident about our position. Third, we did not consider the Maoists as our opponents. Fourth, we didn't think the Maoists would resort to violence and threat to the extent that they did and we were cowed down by their terror.
Then why did you decide to flirt with the Maoists?
Out party was against the extreme left and the status quo of the NC. We concluded that the left parties should come together. Despite their totalitarian thinking we thought we could turn them around. But they betrayed us.
