Despite the prevalence of uncongenial atmosphere for holding municipal elections, the government is determined to hold them. While, on the one hand, many of the country’s 75 districts are under the spell of the Maoists’ ‘people’s war’, the seven anti-regression parties remain determined to derail the efforts to conduct polls.

Besides this, the civil society and human rights bodies are against the polls for a number of reasons, including their unconstitutional character, as they are sponsored by a government headed by ministers who till sometimes back were hostile to democracy and everything that the term connotes.

To cite one instance, rights activist However, Home Minister Kamal Thapa, is not tired of talking about re-consolidating the multi-party system through elections. Yet he forgets that without the participation of the major or minor parties, the polls hardly mean anything.

Ominously, the Maoists, sour over the government’s refusal to reciprocate the ceasefire, will not remain mute witnesses. The need of the time is not municipal elections. What is needed is an honest move to put democracy back on track. This could be done by reactivating the dissolved House and by forming a government that can hold fair and free elections.

The prevailing situation has done immense harm to the country’s highest political institution, the monarchy. Many quarters have started supporting a republican order. Even the Nepali Congress (Democratic) has developed a new mindset to switch over to a democratic system minus monarchy. Mercifully, the Nepali Congress has not yet gone that far.

Meanwhile, Britain, the US and India as well as the UN and EU have been reiterating their views about the need for the King and the parties, not excluding the Maoists, to arrive at a rapprochement so that the country could move towards the goal of peace, democracy and progress. Since October 4, 2002 the country has witnessed many unpleasant developments.

Instead of evolving ways to further strengthen the democratic system, those in power have started to rubbish it when they keep lecturing on democracy without practicing it. Members of the present government do not have the moral authority to pontificate on the system as they do not have the qualification or competence to do that. They have established their identity as supporters of Panchayat system.

King Gyanendra should move along the path of democracy and should abide by multi-party system. He needs to re-orient the country’s political affairs, as it would contribute to realising

the goal. The King and those who talk of their responsibility towards the country had better listen to the counsel of the civilised quarters of the world.

The courtiers and those who profess to have any love for the country but who cannot think correctly of serving it well, are better marginalised in the larger cause of freedom and human welfare.