The king has sacrificed his own bishop, the pawns are not much help, and a dark horse makes a menacing advance. It's the king's move again, and this one will determine the composition of the interim government that he is about to announce.

When he sacked Prime Minister Deuba last Friday, assumed executive powers, and asked political parties to suggest untainted nominees who are not candidates for elections, the king gave himself a five-day deadline. The delay reflects the difficulty in cobbling together a council of ministers due to the reluctance of political parties to go along with the king.

Six parties from the dissolved House still insisted on Thursday to meet the king jointly to put forward their own candidate for prime minister, who would decide on the cabinet. It was their conviction that the king had acted unconstitutionally. But the king refused to meet them, and flew off to Gorkha.

Despite their bravado, strong criticism of the royal move, and the show of force on the streets, the parties do not really want to escalate this confrontation with the king. They reason that this would only benefit the Maoists, feel they have to somehow atone for Deuba's mistakes, and are also aware that much of the public blames them for the past 12 years of deterioration.

To be sure, this crisis was precipitated by Deuba's inability to hold elections as promised in November, and his request to the king to postpone them so he could remain in power for another year. But even Deuba's advisors now admit that it was a mistake to even dissolve parliament, and not extend the terms of local bodies. Deuba also didn't do much to make conditions right to hold elections, and spent most of his time in internal politicking.

The king, for his part, must have seen very slim chances of rescuing the economy, addressing development and deflecting the Maoist threat as long as the politicians kept up the status quo. Last week's Himalmedia poll (#114) showed that although only 0.7 percent of the respondents felt that an active monarchy was the solution to the Maoist problem, nearly 19 percent of them said that the king should tackle the serious issues faced by the nation. Public opinion seems to want the king to have a role, but not as an absolute monarch.

And this can only mean a coalition between the consitutional monarchy and parliamentary parties. However, both the extreme right and the extreme left are intent on driving a wedge between the two institutions. Maoist leaders have been exhorting the political parties to forget about the king and join forces with them, while the rightist forces are telling the king that the political parties have ruined the country and that he should have nothing to do with them.

The king's decision on the interim government is expected on Friday, also the day a Nepal aid consortium meeting begins in Kathmandu, bringing most senior donor representatives to the capital. India, the United States, the Europeans and Japan have all issued strong statements in support of the monarchy and the democratic forces working together.

For their part, the political parties now want the king to "correct his mistake" by using Article 128 of the constitution that mentions an interim government for a "transition period" to set up a multipartisan government of the kind that ruled the country in 1990-91 after the People's Movement. However, Article 128 specifically states that it was a one-shot clause designed for that first transition government.

Most of the vocal and visible support for the royal action has come from Panchayat-era figures, those formerly close to the palace who were unable to enter mainstream multi-party politics, or those disillusioned with democracy.

So far, the king has been intriguingly silent on the demands of the political parties, although insiders say that he is losing his patience with them. There is no shortage of theories to explain the king's silence till press time Thursday evening, but one of them is that he is getting ready to activate Plan B, which is to announce a list of his own ministers, perhaps even one led by an executive crown.