Prez's dinner diplomacy

President Dr Ram Baran Yadav´s dinner diplomacy in which he invited top leaders of the three major political parties Sunday evening will go a long way in building confidence among the top leaders. The president´s initiative holds special significance especially in the context of a void left by the demise of savior of the peace process, Girija Prasad Koirala, and growing anxiety among some quarters about the role of the presidency amid present uncertainty. The sincerity with which the leaders met and discussed the problems facing the country gives a lot of confidence to the leaders themselves about each other, and also to Nepalis who are left wondering about the future of their country. The cordiality and optimism with which the meeting ended also gives a lot of hope that politics will take the right course in the days ahead.



During the dinner and during his meeting with Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal earlier in the day, President Yadav made it clear that he would always remain within constitutional bounds and gave ample indications that he wasn´t in favor of taking any action unilaterally. He also stressed the need for the parties to forge consensus at the earliest so that they can write the constitution and conclude the peace process within stipulated time.



We welcome the initiative taken by the head of state and believe that it will help cement the trust that is beginning to grow among the major parties in the last few weeks. The remarks by the chairman of Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) Pushpa Kamal Dahal during the dinner that he sees the president as the "constitutional guardian" of the country speaks volumes about how much distance the Maoist party has traveled since it quit the government protesting the president´s "unconstitutional move".



The top three parties should realize, as seems to be the case, that the country now requires collective commitment of the parties to end this painful transition and to take the country to a higher level stability. As the largest party in the constituent assembly and also as the party that abandoned war to join peaceful and competitive politics, the UCPN (Maoist) must be ready to shoulder the major responsibility. Once the party changes its priority from leading the national government to concluding the peace process and writing the constitution, half of the problem will be solved. The rest half can be attacked jointly. As wee see it, a new agreement to conclude the peace process and to write the constitution will automatically address suspicion about the Maoists and bolster their claim for leadership of the national government. The other parties must also work to give the Maoist leadership a confidence they need to take bold actions, and we believe that the president´s dinner diplomacy was one of such confidence-building measures.

Related story

Christmas special