When, in April 2006, the people of Nepal overthrew the ambitious but incapable king, Gyanendra, they mandated the country's political parties and the Maoists to work for peace and democracy. This was to be done through a Constituent Assembly, which would eventually draft the new law of the land. The Maoists, who had peacefully supported the People's Movement, emerged to join the seven parliamentary parties, signing a Comprehensive Peace Accord in November 2006. In so doing, they formally gave up their 'people's war', launched in February 1996. In January 2007, they joined in the promulgation of an interim constitution, and rode the momentum to enter the interim parliament with the same number of seats in the house as the two largest parties, the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist). The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) also joined the interim government with five cabinet berths. As such, the stage was set for the greatest prize of all for the people of Nepal: elections to the Constituent Assembly, the representative body that would write the new constitution.
It was the Maoists who convinced the parliamentary parties to go for the Constituent Assembly, albeit after first acceding to lay down their guns. This was the road to the mainstream, after Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal – 'Prachanda' – realised that the Nepali reality, coupled with international geopolitics, would never allow for an armed takeover of the state, as he had long preached underground. And so, Dahal led his flock into the glare of above-ground politics, with the promise of competing in elections and throwing off the old feudal order by the ballot rather than the bullet. This was to be a Nepali example for the world: how a Maoist insurgency could rise above the scorched earth and engage in competitive politics – to fight the good fight for the long term.
But that great experiment is suddenly in jeopardy. It has been difficult all along for Dahal and his comrades to manage the contradiction inherent in giving up armed struggle while misrepresenting affairs to the cadre, so as to maintain unity during the transition. Hardened fighters could not be told that they had lost their comrades in vain, nor could the propaganda about achieving state power through force be jettisoned so easily. At an extended party plenum in early August, Dahal's relatively moderate leadership was faced with the angry 'nationalist-radicals' who charged a sell-out of the revolution. It was around the same time that the Maoists seemed to finally realise that their showing in the Constituent Assembly elections, slated for 22 November, would be abject.
Election panic hit the former rebels, and before long the leadership was digging in its heels – against elections. First, Chairman Dahal proposed that the polls be postponed till April, suggesting that "a revolutionary party never fights an election it cannot win". Then, the Maoists proposed a 22-point list of demands from the government, as precondition for participating in the elections. Many of these points were, in fact, doable, but for the lethargy of the eight parties in command, including the Maoists themselves. But there were two political demands that were significant sticking points. By putting these points forward, the Maoists were essentially reneging on the agreement signed with the rest of the eight-party coalition. The demand for an immediate establishment of a king-less republic by the interim parliament (and putting a president in place) went against the agreement to let the future of the monarchy be decided by the Constituent Assembly. The other demand was for a 'full-proportional' electoral system at the November polls, rather than the mixed system (half of it proportional and the other half through direct candidature) that had been agreed on as a compromise.