The king detaches himself from the army and the gang of non-royal/unroyal monarchists. That is the price he pays to keep the monarchy. The royals will have the option to stay on in a ceremonial capacity. That is as far as the democrats would be willing to do. But that might already have been yesterday.
But the king has not done anything to date to show the world he might opt for something like that. And so that leaves room only for a strong Maoist-Democrat alliance. How to make that alliance strong like steel? So as to usher in peace, democracy and progress into the country as soon as possible?
Seven Party Democratic Alliance
- Acknowledge the major ideological shift taken by the Maoists under the leadership of Dr. Baburam Bhattarai. The Maoists might have started out with the goal of a communist republic. But now they have shifted to accepting a multi-party framework, right to property and things like that. That is huge.
- Forget the 1999 House. Revise your common minimum program. Turn it into a three point program. Interim government, constituent assembly, democratic republic.
- Approach the Maoists with that CMP. Tell them, if it is not about the king and the monarchists, then their sole focus should be to deal with the democrats. Since they have already made their ideological shift away from the classic Maoist dictum of "power flows through the barrel of a gun," they might as well totally disarm.
- Offer to agree to their land-to-the-tiller land reform program in return. Turn the three point program into a four point program.Interim government, constituent assembly, democratic republic, land-to-the-tiller land reform.
- Or at least a partial disarmament. Down to 3,000 armed cadres from the current level, to be integrated into the state army once the state power is acquired. How do you believe they did that? They should agree to allow international human rights monitors into all their military installations. There is of course a five year goal to have an army only 30,000 strong or less.
- Form an eight member committee to draft a new constitution. I recommend this as a starting point: Proposed Democratic Republican Constitution. All each party has to do is make three columns: (a) articles the party agrees with, (b) articles the party disagrees with and why, and (c) articles the party would like to add, subtract or modify and why. Keep the conversation public. Try to agree on as many things as possible. Things you can not agree on, that is what a Constituent Assembly is for. On the other hand, if you can agree on it all, we might as well skip the Constituent Assembly. The interim government gets six months to get the people to accept the new constitution in a referendum, and another six to hold elections to a new parliament. Let's face it, even after an Assembly is formed, it will still be the leaders of these eight parties banging heads. Why will they not band heads now?
- Launch a massive nationwide peaceful protest of the eight party alliance.
- Once the protest approaches a critical mass - say 500,000 people out in the streets for two weeks - declare an interim government unilaterally.