Nepal: Looking Back on 2005, Looking Forward to 2006 Dev Raj Dahal, FES Kathmandu, January 2006 • 2005 was a turbulent time for Nepal with the current Maoist insurgency, the Royal takeover, the political agitation of the seven-party alliance(SPA), the SPA-Maoist under­standing and the movement of NGOs, INGOs, ethnic groups, Dalits and professional groups known as the civil society. • Violent conflict has weakened the national state, democratic institutions, development space and stymied humanitarian supplies. The disintegrating livelihood economy, social and ethnic divisions and human rights abuses indicate that sub-units of the state are los­ing their energy. • On September 3, CPN(Maoist) declared a unilateral truce for three months and later ex­tended it for another month after it entered into an understanding with the SPA. But it did not reduce the extortion, kidnapping and indoctrination of cadres of other parties, students and ordinary people. • By declaring the elections, the King has rejected the demand of SPA to revive the par­liament. The SPA and CPN(Maoist) have decided to boycott the election and continue with their agitation to restore‘absolute democracy.’ CPN(Maoist) broke the truce to­wards the close of the year and declared a week-long general strike from February 5-11, 2006. The King and the Government On February 1, 2005 King Gyanendra dismissed Prime Minister Sher B. Deuba’s government for failing to hold the prom­ised general elections, assumed direct power and declared a state of emergency for 3 months in view of the serious crisis posed to the nation’s sovereignty, integ­rity and security. He said he would hold the elections that Deuba could not and hand back the power in 3 years time to the people’s representatives after con­ducting an election. By doing so he of­fered the international community a clear choice: either support his regime or the CPN(Maoist). Placing political leaders un­der house detention, he added roles for the security forces, suspended civil liber­ties(except for the right to remedy under habeas corpus) and censored the press during the emergency period. He, how­ever, expressed commitment to multiparty democracy and promised to take action against crime and corruption. The next day he formed a cabinet under his chair­manship to“fulfill the people’s desire for the restoration of peace and security and to activate the democratic dispensation soon.” In response to the opposition of political parties, civil society and the inter­national community the King asserted, “We must pursue a democratic system that is suitable to the genus of the people of Nepal and to the soil of Nepal.” The cabinet formulated a 21-point deci­sion, which stressed empowerment of the Commission for the Investigation of 1