Nepali Times

It had to come to this sooner or later: the sight of Brahmin priests chanting Vedic mantras in Sanskrit with their right hands swaying, and for the grande finale raising their fists in red salutes below a portrait of Uncle Joe Stalin. The top Mau Mau leaders, all Bahun Baddies themselves with names like Dahal, Bhattarai, Sapkota and Poudel, looked on approvingly. This Orwellian moment was straight out of Animal Farm and the most vivid proof so far that the comrades have changed their party ideology to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-Hinduism and belong to a sect that still believes in human sacrifice. Two legs bad, four-wheel drives good.



The talk of the town this week was about whether the Hyphen Maos and the Bracket Maos would get together before elections. The President, under the mistaken belief that it is his responsibility to ensure stability in this country through an election in which everyone takes part, organised a tea party at Shital Niwas. The Hyphen Comrades looked like they had abandoned the rigid stance on their four-point agenda and would be reuniting with the Bracket Boys in an electoral alliance. NKS and other honchos argued that if the resignation of KRR as CJ would bring the Dash into the electoral fold, Chief Minister Kill Raj should be willing to oblige. Even BRB could be seen nodding sagely. But someone somewhere put a spanner in the works overnight, and RCP and PKD changed their tune the next morning launching into the reasons why it wasn’t necessary for KRR to step down as CJ. Would be really interesting to get the caller ID log for the mobile phones of Lotus Flower and Ram Chunder for the night of 14 Sept.



After topping the list of Nepal’s Ten Most Powerful on a website, Comrade Awesum really seems to believe that he is even more awesome than he originally thought he was, and there is no alternative to him in Nepali politics. For the moment, he has decided that he is going to make the best of the elections and not try to secretly sabotage it. The way he sees it, he has a win-win with ladoos in both hands. If the Dash unites with Cash, it’s good for him and if the Dash keeps away from elections it’s fine too. What would be really terrible would be for the Dash to contest elections and break up the Cash vote bank, and he is having late night drinking sessions with the Dashos to prevent that from happening.



The guy who feels most aggrieved by how things have turned out is BRB, who was assured by the powers that be when he stepped down that the Regmi Regime was temporary and he would be the incumbent PM at election time. Which is why the Doc has been pretty openly the one favouring a postponement of November polls. In closed door meetings, BRB pushes for KRR to step down as CJ if that brings Comrade Big Plop and his Band of Merry Bus Burners into the fold.



Thank goodness the Europeans are interfering in our internal affairs. At a time when armed paramilitary police stands by as five or six goons with molotovs can terrorise the country, and when Chief Minister Regmi doesn’t even care to issue a condemnation of the burning of a bus in Banepa, at least we have the embassies of the EU and Germany strongly speaking on behalf of the people. But someone has to draw the line at excellencies touring the country dispensing unsolicited advice about our elections.

After all, Shanker Sharma wasn’t touring Florida last year lecturing Americans on the need to prevent pregnant chads. Nor has Suresh Chalise been meeting Scottish leaders to try to persuade them to vote no in the independence referendum.  If KTM-based ambs insist on meeting Limbu leaders, however, they should know which ones they are talking to. One envoy thought he was giving a stern lecture to Lingden’s mob (which is part of the 33) on why they should participate in elections, when in actual fact he was addressing Palungwa’s baffled cadres, who are registered with the EC and already participating.



Have to hand it to Lokman Baba for his attention to detail. Not distracted by the wholesale plunder in broad daylight by his mentors, he has now got Kathmandu’s road-widening in his cross hairs. Brace yourselves. Those of you looking forward to the never-ending street construction coming to a swift end before the holidays have a surprise. The CIAA is planning to tear down the newly reconstructed roadside buildings because the street wideners apparently used 18m cutoff when it should have been 22m. Oops. Why not just hand over the road-widening to the Europeans?