Old regimes, like old habits, die hard. Nepal’s politicians agree that the country no longer needs the monarchy, but cannot agree on when and how they should consign the institution to history. Ironically, their failure to resolve the differences on this score has kept the monarchists’ hopes alive. Worse still, the bickering politicians have made things uncertain for the coming of the new political order in Nepal. The elections to the constituent assembly, which have now been postponed, would have been the first big step on that road ahead. By forcing the postponement of the polls, the Maoists have not only delayed the democratic process, but also raised questions about their intentions. Their insistence that the country be declared a republic before the polls clearly violates the agreement between them and the democratic parties. The agreement, which ended the Maoists’ decade-old insurgency, had categorically stated that the constituent assembly would decide the fate of the monarchy during its first session. Ever since the former rebels joined Girija Prasad Koirala’s interim government, they have been shifting the goal posts on some pretext or the other. If the monarchy gets a new lease of life because of the lack of political consensus, the responsibility will lie primarily with the Maoists.

The constituent assembly would have been the right forum to pave the way for a new order in Nepal. It would have been the first elected body under the new dispensation. It could have rightfully claimed a moral and constitutional authority that even the present parliament and the interim government do not have. After all, the present parliament consists of members who had been elected eight years ago. And the interim government was born of the pact between the Maoists and the seven-party alliance; it is not elected by the people. That is why the Maoists’ other demand for a parliamentary resolution on the abolition of the monarchy is also flawed. The Maoists have another chance of redeeming their pledge for the new democracy when a special session of parliament discusses their demands. The issue of proportional representation of ethnic groups in the constituent assembly is also an important one, but it cannot be allowed to stop the electoral process. Nepal is on the threshold of a historic change. This, certainly, is no time for narrow, sectarian politics.