By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Kathmandu : With little over two months left for a critical election, regarded as a key step to restore peace and stability in Nepal, Maoist party chief Prachanda has ruled out polls taking place if the government fails to abolish monarchy within a week.
“If the government fails to create a conducive environment, the election would not take place (on Nov 22),” Prachanda, chairman of the once underground party and supreme commander of its guerrilla army, said in an extensive interview published Tuesday in the Maoists’ mouthpiece, the Janadesh weekly.
The Maoist party has said it will quit the government and start a new movement from the first week of the Nepali month of Asauj, which starts Sep 18.
“We gave the government a month-long ultimatum,” Prachanda said. “Considering all this, the election will not be held.”
The Maoist supremo, who has begun touring the countryside to urge cadres to get ready for a “new revolt”, said the other major parties – including Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s Nepali Congress and the second largest party in the government, the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist – had agreed that elections would be impossible in such a scenario.
When they signed a peace pact with the government last year and ended their 10-year “people’s war”, the Maoists had agreed to take part in a constituent assembly election that would decide if Nepal should remain a monarchy or become a republic.
However, about a month ago, they changed their stand, reportedly due to fears that they would fare badly at the hustings. Now they are pressuring the government to use a new constitutional provision to abolish monarchy before the election takes place.
While they are alleging that King Gyanendra would try to sabotage the election that can jeopardise his crown, the parties say the Maoists have lost their support in the countryside while the king still enjoys allegiance despite the unpopularity of his 15-month absolute reign.
However, Prachanda said since there was still a week left, he was hopeful some solution would emerge. Though the party has not yet spelled out the nature of the new revolt, it would include strikes in various sectors, general strikes and blockades.
There is mounting tension in Nepal after the Maoists came up with 22 new demands as the other parties have rejected scrapping monarchy before the election.
They have the backing of the international community that says since the current parliament is not an elected one, if it decides to abolish monarchy through a proclamation supported by two-third MPs, the move would not be legitimate.
In his interview, Prachanda lashed out at the foreign governments, saying their interference was mounting in Nepal.
“When should we hold elections, how should we hold them… all these issues are Nepal’s own affairs,” he said. “These are not subjects that can be dictated to by foreigners.
“It seems foreigners are more interested in the polls than Nepalis and Nepal’s parties.”
The Maoist anger is especially directed towards India, whom the rebels regard as having brokered an agreement between Koirala and an ethnic group, the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum, that is the Maoists’ biggest enemy in the Terai plains now.
The guerrillas also suspect India of trying to force a merger between Koirala’s party and its breakaway group, Nepali Congress (Democratic), headed by deposed premier Sher Bahadur Deuba, which would pose a stiffer challenge to the Maoist party in the election.