The fact that the number of people who say they will vote for the Maoists if they disarm has dropped from 20.9 percent in the 2003 nationwide poll to 14.9 percent in the Kathmandu Valley poll could be due to two reasons: this was a poll in the capital where people are generally less supportive of the Maoists and also because of the violence against ordinary people that the Maoists have engaged in the past two years. But a non-violent Maoist entity still seems to have more support than any of the erstwhile parliamentary parties, which should be a sobering thought to our overground political leaders and perhaps a timely reminder to the underground ones that they should join the mainstream before their support falls any further.

Gyan Subba,
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. Your Kathmandu Valley public opinion poll, if it was really meant to reflect the views of the nation, is ridiculous. Though I hail from Kathmandu, I hardly think its population is representive of the ethnic and ideological mix of rest of the nation. We may have migrants from all parts of the nation, but it is not proportionate to the nationwide sizes of various groups. You should also give more details of the methodology used for public opinion polls.

onsidering that a majority of the population has no means of modern communication and that even the best surveys in the West suffer from such difficulties, I doubt that your survey results are accurate. I suspect that you just want to further yellow journalism and tout your own doomsday analysis of the nation with such surveys.

K Shrestha,
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. I analysed the results of the Himalmedia Public Opinion Poll in great detail, and found the comparison to your previous nationwide polls revealing. Indeed, Kathmanduites are more conservative than the rest of the country. However, given that nearly half your respondents were recent migrants one could safely assume that the results are an accurate depiction of the national mood. If so, there are a lot of lessons here for the political parties and the Maoists. In his roundup of the poll results ('Yes and no', #218) Kunda Dixit says 'the people blame the king and the Maoists for the mess'. I don't see that reflected anywhere in the results printed in Nepali Times. Granted, the people don't seem to approve of the king's sacking of the prime minister two years ago (50.66 percent), but 49 percent think he is actually in charge, and an overwhelming 45 percent think he should talk directly with the Maoists to resolve the crisis. That does not mean they blame him for the mess. King Gyanendra is in a dilemma because he is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. If he tries to steer the countries back on course, as most of his subjects seem to want, the political parties will all cry foul and call it 'regression'. So what is he supposed to do?

Name withheld,
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