Well, 5 months have passed since the Maoists of Nepal took charge of governing Nepal. And increasing disillusionment seems to be setting in among voters and a population who has been hoping for positive change in the country. “Failure to increase opportunities in line with expectations is producing growing tension.” This is actually a sentence from a history book of Nepal, describing the political scene in the 1970’s, but it is an equally valid assessment of current affairs in 2009.

In stead of meeting the people’s expectations, their various initiatives have been met with popular protests. Banning the Miss Nepal competition, closing down casinos and Kathmandu’s popular “dance restaurants” (semi-brothels) after 11 pm, together with a number of recent violent incidents they can’t seem to wash their hands altogether clean of: The recent murder of female journalist Uma Singh, who was hacked to death in her home by 15 yet unidentified persons on the 11th January and the attack on the Himal Media office, publishing house of various magazines not always sympathetic to the Maoists’ doings.

Inside the government, things also seem to be running far from smoothly. A couple of recent headlines: “Nepal Minister dragged to court for being an Indian Citizen” and “Nepal lawmaker arrested in murder case”. Mind you, none of the accused are Maoists. But it is signs that things aren’t running very well. Mistrust and self-serving interests, traits synonymous with Nepali politics for centuries, is also biting away in the coalition government. Before coming to power, when all the parties were in opposition to the Kings autocratic rule, they could all agree and come together. But now, under the burden of power and responsibility, the parties are failing to cooperate and implement those positive changes the Nepali people were hoping for.

So where is Nepal heading?

One scenario that I can’t seem to get out of my head is that: The Maoists will continue to “play the democratic game” for some time, a year, two years or so, with the internal bickering making it impossible to move forward, and then declare a state of emergency and assume dictatorial power. Possibly lock up opposition leaders on some bogus charges. The trigger could, for instance, be the failure to promulgate the new constitution or even a major natural calamity, like a Richter 8 earthquake hitting Nepal. But they won’t do this before they have taken effective control over essential government institutions, namely the Army and Armed Police Force. And they still don’t have that control. In November, there was a bit of a row between the Minister of Defense and the Army Chief. The Maoist minister instructed the army not to hire new staff, but the army went ahead and did so anyway. So much for “democratic control”.

Clearly, the Maoists have some way to go before they are in effective charge. They need to integrate their old “People’s Army” with the official “Nepal Army” and have some of their own cadres in key positions. This is by way of “appointing loyals”, of course. Could the Pashupati incident from a couple of weeks ago be interpreted as a start of a round of such “appointments”? The Pashupati incident, perhaps I should explain, was a Maoist attempt to appoint a chief priest of their choosing as head of the main temple complex in Nepal. It was met with enormous protests and, finally, a supreme court ruling that they (a secular party, by the way) had no authority of appointing religious personnel.

Ok, I know this conspiracy theory isn’t the only possible course of events. But it is hard to see how the people in power of this, the world’s newest republic, is ever going to mend their ways. And it’s sad. Because Nepal could be a great country, they have some valuable natural resources, a nature and culture that tourists love, a good strategic position between Asian giants India and China etc.

And it shouldn’t be too hard to come up with a national development strategy that everybody can agree on – if their goals were merely to make Nepal a country of material and spiritual wealth: 1. Build some infrastructure (roads, power plants, flood dams etc). 2. Stop political interference in the judiciary system. 3. Make government employees accountable and sack them if they don’t do their job. 4. Stop impunity and crack down on corruption on all levels with an independent and all-powerful commission, run by outsiders if necessary. 5. Give people opportunities to get a decent education and job - not the usual and useless “Business Management” and “Hotel Management” courses please! Make them mechanics, construction workers, engineers, web developers etc!

There are plenty of well-funded international development organizations based in Nepal ready and willing to help fund these projects. But the much hyped “New Nepal” seems to be based on all the bad old habits. Just stuff the national pride (what’s there to be proud of anyway?) and sovereignty-BS for a couple of years. Hey, sometimes it’s necessary to cut down a couple of the old trees if you want to grow a new garden!