KATHMANDU, Dec 8: While the political parties have failed to make any headway in finding a consensus prime ministerial candidate, the agitating opposition parties´ protests have also petered out.
A meeting of the joint taskforce, which was formed by the 15 agitating political parties to work out details of protest programs, withdrew their protests on Friday citing top leaders´ engagement in talks on forming a new consensus government as called by President Ram Baran Yadav.[break]
While announcing month-long protests, top leaders of opposition parties, including the Nepali Congress (NC) and the CPN-UML, had claimed that they would halt their protests only after ousting the present government.
“A meeting of the top leaders from 15 political parties will be called at the earliest to review the latest political developments and plan further protests,” said a statement jointly issued by three taskforce members -- NC´s Minendra Rijal, CPN-UML´s Raghuji Pant and Deepak Bohara of Rastriya Prajatantra Party -- on Friday.
As the opposition parties decided to withdraw their protest programs, those closely involved and observing the latest political developments believe that leaders from the agitating parties are in a state of confusion over their roadmap ahead.
This is not the first time that the opposition alliance led by NC and CPN-UML has withdrawn scheduled protests. In June, leaders from 26 opposition political parties led by NC and CPN-UML had announced protests vowing to unseat the Bhattarai-government but that ended without gathering any momentum.
Last month, they again formed a 15-party alliance to fight the present coalition and vowed to stop only after ousting the government.
CPN-ML General Secretary CP Mainali, a leader involved in the agitation, conceded that they are in a fix yet again. He admitted that they have failed to exert enough pressure on the Maoist-Madhesi coalition.
"It is true that we are in a quandary. We can´t rule out talks and we need to pile pressure on the ruling side as well," Mainali told Republica. "Now, we need to make a firm resolution in the days to come."
The opposition parties can´t rebuff talks with the ruling parties because the president for the second time extended the deadline for political parties to find a common prime ministerial candidate and form a unity government as demanded by the opposition parties.
"I think we shouldn´t have halted the protests announced in June. We committed a mistake then by not giving continuity to the agitation," said Mainali.
Chitra Bahadur KC, chairman of Rastriya Janamorcha, however, describe the agitating group as a “bunch of confused leaders”.
"Their repeated threat to launch protests and withdrawal shows they don´t have the mettle to garner public support," KC told Republica. He compared the opposition with "empty vessels making much noise".
Mumaram Khanal, one of the civil society members who have lately initiated a campaign to press the government and key political forces to hold election and promulgate the new constitution, believed that the opposition´s protests failed to gather momentum as they failed to uphold democratic values and instead looked like “clamoring for power”.
He said the opposition parties should have strongly raised the issues of national interests and democratic values that the present government has undermined.
"Vital democratic institutions have been rendered non-functioning and national interests have been repeatedly compromised by this government but NC and UML leaders are only talking about prime ministerial candidate," said former Maoist central committee member Khanal, who quit the party during insurgency.
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