BIKRAM RAI

The UML's Youth Association Nepal declared a four-day 'morning banda' this week to pressurise Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai to resign. The party said it was closing down the streets for only four hours a day because it didn't want to 'inconvenience' the public. But they enforced their shutdown by terrorising commuters who dared to get out, like this one in Dillibajar on Sunday morning. The police intervened on time and the car and its occupants escaped unscathed.

The opposition parties claim that a national unity government is the only way to break the constitutional void. The NC can't decide whom to field as prime ministerial candidate, and this is making the UML impatient. The reason for this hurry is that political parties have no other source of cash to finance a future election campaign except to try to get into government and fill their coffers. Ransacking the state treasury while in office has become standard operating procedure.

Nepal is not poor, only poorly-governed. And it will stay that way unless the electoral process is reformed with strong laws to regulate campaign financing.