With just one week to go for the election, the hope of any electoral pact of a major kind between the three big political parties within the Seven Party Alliance has faded. Now, practically, too, the chances are remote. If the top leaders of the political parties had wanted electoral alliances, they would have struck alliances before the date for the withdrawal of candidacy at the Election Commission. Any adjustment now would mean an informal pullout from the fray. This would pose the problem of getting the message across to the voters and influencing them along the agreed lines. Besides, the candidates, who will have completed most part of their electioneering, with election so close at hand, will feel uneasy and may even resent such decisions — for instance, two of the Maoist candidates are reported to have done so after their party’s late electoral adjustment with Janamorcha Nepal. It was not that the SPA partners did not understand the importance of electoral alliances — a show of unity at this juncture would also have sent a highly encouraging message to the electorate. But, by going it alone, political parties betrayed their narrow mindsets, and, probably some of them thought it more important to send the message of a certain kind to their non-electorate constituencies.

What can, however, be expected at most, and at the last minute, is an understanding through an informal arrangement of supporting a very small number of candidates of each other, most probably under five per cent of the 240 seats available for election under the First-Past-the-Post (FPtP) system. Any such adjustment, if possible, would be to ensure that top leaders of the parties concerned are elected. This is the least they could do. Otherwise, questions would arise as to what kind of constitution any political party would expect to make by trying to defeat the top political leaders, or what contribution it could make to the peace process, which will not be complete just because the CA election is over. Even at this late hour of campaigning, the parties would be well advised to demonstrate a minimum level of cooperative spirit and build trust.

Even in normal times of general elections, the presence of the top political leaders in the legislature would boost its quality. This is particularly important in the election to the CA, which is essentially a legislature for making a constitution. As about sixty per cent of the seats are to be filled through proportional representation, no single party can logically be expected to win a majority. The pattern of the results of the parliamentary elections in Nepal shows that any political party that has won a majority, even a two-thirds one, has won popular vote of just around 35 per cent. Now, with the presence of new parties, particularly the CPN-Maoist and several Tarai-based parties, and a changed political atmosphere, any single-party majority is unlikely. And the mixed results would indeed serve the purposes of the CA better, as then, all parties of some influence would have an opportunity to contribute in some significant way to the constitution-making process.