Nepal's political parties have over the years dug themselves into a pit of non-credibility.
Their detachment from the national interest and petty behaviour hurts the country as it tries to tackle the Maoist insurgency. The parties are on a confrontation course with the king, who seems to want to remain in the centre of things. On 30 April, King Gyanendra's appointed prime minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand resigned after the parties launched a street agitation. The king then asked the parties to choose their own prime minister and cabinet, possibly in the hope that they would never be able to agree among themselves.
The talk in Kathmandu's diplomatic and donor circles that wield inordinate influence over the country's national affairs is dominated by exasperation with the political parties, who 'just do not seem to get it'. The conventional wisdom is that the king is trying to set the country on the right track, and the parties are playing spoilsport despite 12 years of bungling while at the helm.
What is forgotten in these top-circle conversations is that the prelude to the dozen years of undoubtedly messy multiparty democracy was three decades of autocratic rule by the palace. Memories of the Panchayat system, in place for 30 years until political parties won democracy in 1990, should be enough to discourage all desire to return to a palace-administered polity.