Prime Minister Who Would Be King

Yubaraj Ghimire

G.P. koirala was arguably the most powerful prime minister the country ever had, going by the powers vested in him. For the past 16 months, he has been acting not only as the country's prime minister, but also discharging all the roles of the head of state. And King Gyanendra has become a political recluse.

Koirala has of late come in for sharp criticism for representing the state in various Hindu religious functions like the kings have been doing for a century in 'Hindu Nepal'. With the country declared secular in May 2007, it was expected that the government or head of state would maintain no direct link with such activities. On September 30, about half an hour after Koirala offered puja to Kumari, known as living Goddess, as head of the state and left the durbar square area, King Gyanendra arrived there without fanfare. He offered puja to Kumari, a tradition the kings have been maintaining for the past 250 years, and returned home. The crowd that booed Prime Minister Koirala when he visited there, greeted the king — something Gyanendra perhaps did not anticipate.

That clearly irked PM Koirala who not only sought an explanation from the chief of army staff a day later, but also ordered that half the army personnel currently deployed in the palace be removed. But many who supported the pro-democracy movement when King Gyanendra assumed absolute power are now fed up with Koirala and refuse to support him on the issue.

In fact, the crowd that hooted him delivered a simple message — Koirala is a prime minister and he should not be acting like a king, at least during religious functions. Nepali society with more than 80 per cent Hindu population, and the rest being Buddhists, Muslims and Christians, still remains a religious society and favours the king or any other individual's right to religion, something that the interim constitution guarantees as a fundamental right. Koirala has been denying that right to King Gyanendra of late.

Gyanendra, despite his unpopularity at the peak with absolute powers, was able to secure lots of sympathy, if not support from the people, when he was literally put under quarantine since February 18 when he issued a customary message in the name of the people on the occasion of Democracy Day. Since then, thrice in the past, the king was denied permission by the prime minister when he expressed his desire to be part of the tradition of the kings. Instead, Koirala took the king's role unto himself.

But what he apparently heard from the chief of army staff on the morning of October 1 must have added to that insecurity. COAS Katawal made it clear that while the Nepal army was a disciplined institution and willing to carry every order of a democratically elected government, it was worried about the complete surrender that the prime minister had made to the Maoists. He also made it clear that the army would honour each and every provision of the interim constitution and the comprehensive peace agreement (CPA), the basis of Maoists joining the interim government, parliament and announcing that they had renounced the politics of violence. The army is unhappy with initiating a deal with the Maoists to become a republic even before the election to the constituent assembly takes place, against the pledge in the interim constitution that the first CA meeting will decide the fate of the monarchy.

With elections unlikely in November given the present political impasse, Koirala not only loses the political but also the mass support that he enjoyed only 16 months ago. His imminent fall now seems triggered by the army's likely non-cooperation as well.

Source: The Indian Experss, October 4, 2007