Nepalese King Recalls Prorogued Parliament

Yesterday saw a massive protest in Katmandu, Nepal, turn into a victory rally by the opposition. Late Monday, King Gyanendra announced he was recalling the parliament he had dissolved more than a year ago. Former Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, one of the opposition leaders, will head the new government. Still, the opposition celebrated prematurely.

His Majesty originally sacked the parliament and decided to rule by decree because the government wasn’t being very effective in fighting off a Maoist insurgency. While the liberal bourgeois parties may be happy about the recent concessions, the insurgents aren’t buying it. The Maoist leader Prachanda in a statement said the king’s change of heart was merely “a new ploy to break the Nepali people and save his autocratic monarchy.” He and his followers want the opposition to honor a deal it made with them in November to hold fresh elections and redraft the constitution to reduce the king’s power. Until that happens, they have announced a blockade of Katmandu and all provincial capitals.

If the conflict were merely a constitutional issue, the current withdrawal by the king would settle the matter, or at very least, offer a roadmap out of the mess. However, the Maoists have been fighting for 10 years, and 13,000 Nepalese have died in the struggle. This isn’t over. There were shouts earlier in the protests in Katmandu of “Gyanendra, thief, leave the country,” and more succinctly “Hang the king.” Louis XVI, who died as Citizen Louis Capet, would have felt right at home.

The parliamentarians are, as usual, naïve about the communists. For some reason, moderate, safe, sensible, decent, small-“l” liberals can’t quite accept that Maoists and other Marxists should be taken at their word. Minendra Rijal, an opposition leader, said: “We will be doing all we can to bring Maoists to the mainstream of peace and democracy. Now, we have to create an environment for an interim government that will have Maoist participation.” One hopes that Mr. Rijal survives that participation.

The king must now abdicate and leave Nepal if there is to be a monarchy at all. He remains a figure many won’t support, and right now, republican sentiment is running high. His son Crown Prince Paras is horrendously unpopular thanks to what Wikipedia says is “a history of debauchery, drug abuse and violence including at least one incident of vehicular homicide for which he was never prosecuted.” The king's daughter, Princess Prerana Rajya Laxmi Devi, however, has the advantage of being a woman, which could make the transition to a constitutional monarchy feasible as she could be seen (rightly or wrongly) as more malleable.

The ultimate question for the democrats is “can the king be trusted?” Apparently, this one cannot.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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