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By Shashi P.B.B. Malla

We are not talking about a change of seasons, but at the start of winter, being confronted with a spate of street demonstrations of various political parties and organizations, of the possibility of a genuine change of regime.

After all, what we came to observe was not the genuine outpouring of protest against a rogue regime, but a road show or tamasha….

Durga Prasai, the medical entrepreneur, and his band of followers were at best a minor irritant – a fly in the ointment. But PM K.P. Sharma Oli and his government saw in their movement “the attempts of the anarchic forces to disrupt social harmony and cohesion” (The Kathmandu Post/TKP, Nov. 23)!

Oli, his party the CPN-UML and the Nepali Congress (NC) [what wonderful bedfellows!] have also targeted Rabi Lamichhhane and his Rashtriya Swatantra Party. What the police are doing to him is an absolute disgrace, and stinks to high heaven. It is nothing less than state terrorism!

Oli claims that no corrupt individual will be spared and no innocent one will be framed. He implies that holding rallies against the government is, therefore, tantamount to high treason!

He had the impudence to pronounce that it is shameless to denounce others when “you yourself indulge in fraud”. But actually, it is a case of ‘the pot calling the kettle black’.

In all this, the complicity of Sher Bahadur Deuba and his Nepali Congress, as well as the other parties in the coalition, is utterly despicable. The government is misusing the state apparatus to stifle peaceful protests and demonstrations – which is an inherent democratic right [but perhaps not according to the current state ideology of ‘Loktantra’].

Oli and his party’s own “awakening rally” or ‘demonstration of strength’ was actually a flop – instead of the expected one hundred thousand, not even a fourth turned up (TKP), and as we have seen, it was not at all edifying.

Speaking at the same event, CPN-UML General Secretary Shankar Pokharel ‘let the cat out of the bag’ by revealing that the country’s lack of development was a result of political instability.

But then who is responsible for this state of affairs after the so-called restoration of democracy in 1990? The stray dogs that haunt the streets of Kathmandu?

Comrade, or does he rather prefer Shri Pokharel Ji is exercising the extolled Communist self-criticism, or was it a slip of the tongue, or genuine mea culpa?

Pokharel then said that developing the country was not possible without visionary leadership, strong political parties and political stability.

Actually, the self-indictment continued when he highlighted that despite having more than 28 prime ministers in 35 years since the restoration of the multi-party system, development has remained elusive due to the lack of political stability.

In the meantime, his boss the Don of the CPN-UML, has made a mess of the Himalayan Republic’s external relations.

Oli is virtually persona non grata in India, and is travelling with a begging bowl to China!

And Nepal’s Spring? Well, a visionary leader is long overdue!

The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com