Another Friday to decide Nepal’s fate?

KATHMANDU: It was a Friday in June 2001 when Nepal's history took a downward turn following the assassination of its king, Birendra, and nine more members of the royal family. A year later, it was another Friday in October 2002 when Birendra's successor, King Gyanendra, started the grim march towards the unravelling of monarchy by sacking the elected prime minister and beginning a costly experiment to rule the country himself.
Now once more a Friday, the day that has become synonymous with dark deeds in Nepal, would seal the republic's fate with the major parties agreeing to defer the controversial prime ministerial election – scheduled for today – to Nov 19. After 16 rounds of futile vote to elect a new prime minister, the 17th round promises to be different, following a Supreme Court directive to parliament to end the charade.
After four months of failed elections, now Nepal's largest ruling party, the Nepali Congress (NC), as well as most of the smaller parties, are becoming more aggressive. The smaller parties, who held a council of war on Monday, agreed to pressure all the MPs in the 601-seat parliament to take part in the election one last time and make a difference by voting. The impasse arose as the two largest left parties – the ruling Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist-Leninist and the opposition Maoists –decided to stay neutral after their candidates were forced to exit the race. The abstention made it impossible for the lone contestant, NC leader Ram Chandra Poudel, to win since for that he needs to get at least 300 votes.
Though Nepal's unique election system allows the poll to continue endlessly with just one candidate till he gets the required number of seats or withdraws, the state of inertia changed after two lawyers last month challenged the futile polls in Supreme Court. The lawyers also pleaded that as the only candidate left, Poudel should be declared the winner. While the apex court recommended that to parliament as a possible solution, it has however carefully refrained from making it a binding order.

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