Nepal. Looking Back on 2004, Looking Forward to 2005 Dev Raj Dahal, FES Kathmandu, January 2005 • Amnesty International(AI) has dubbed Nepal as“Country at Risk” because it is hurtling towards a major crisis with the intensification of the conflict between the establishment and the Commu­nist Party of Nepal-Maoist(CPN-Maoist). As a result, the Nepali state is going through a down­ward spiral in terms of democratic and development processes. • Political parties outside the helm of power are squeezed between the ongoing insurgency in the rural areas and an anti-democratic spiral in the capital city, Kathmandu, where the state power is centralized. It is clear that the establishment lacks an institutional capacity to effectively resolve the conflict. • Capitalizing on the weak security presence in rural areas, the rebels are forcing the Village De­velopment Committee(VDC) secretaries, the only remaining representatives of the state in soci­ety, to resign en-masse . Public cynicism with the national institutions such as government, politi­cal parties, bureaucracy and courts runs intense due to their poor performance and abuse of au­thority. • The tendency of major actors- the establishment, opposition parties and the rebels- to distrust and oppose each other continues to perpetuate the political deadlock. The politics of deadlock has put a question mark on the ability of the leadership to lead the nation in difficult times and manage the clash of countervailing national and international forces. The media, civil society and human rights organizations are pro-actively engaging publicly in peace activism and democratiza­tion. Political Situation The joint agitation of five parties- Nepali Congress(NC), Communist Party of Nepal­Unified Marxist Leninist(CPN-UML), Nepal Sadbhavana Party(NSP-Anandi Devi), Nepal Workers and Peasants’ Party(NeWPP) and Jana Morcha Nepal(JMN)- demanding the restoration of the parliament forced King Gy­anendra to reappoint Deuba as Prime Minister on June 10, 2004. The King entrusted the Premier with the responsibility to include all sides in the government, restore peace in the country by starting a dialogue with the CPN­Maoist and initiate elections to the House of Representatives within mid-April 2005. After Deuba’s formation of a coalition government by NC(Democratic), CPN-UML, Rastriya Pra­jatantra Party(RPP), NSP and royal nominees, the political agitation against the King be­came somewhat weak, but it has not contrib­uted much to stabilize state authority. Neither has any headway been made towards peace negotiations with the CPN-Maoist, although the government has been repeatedly calling on the Maoists to initiate the dialogue process in their camp. Equally remote is the possibility of holding parliamentary elections within a stipulated time, mainly because of the security situation. Vicious factionalism caused by lead­ership wrangling for power has gripped all major parties, afflicted their ancillary organiza­tions and weakened their authority to take any positive initiative. Role and Position of Key Political Actors The Establishment : King Gyanendra in his interview with Time Asia Magazine on Febru­ary 2 expressed his interest“to play the role of a constructive monarch by becoming visible to the public and know their concerns.” Im­mediately after this, he started his tours in the western region of the country, where the 1