Almost a dinner party

tauringhuang.

Aug 21st 2008 | KATHMANDU
From The Economist print edition

A guerrilla becomes prime minister

AFP

Power grows out of a two-piece suit“THE Maoist revolution aims to get rid of the whole economic, political and social system that oppresses the people,” wrote Li Onesto, an American fan of Nepal’s Maoists, in 2005. Some of this is probably still true, but the final revolution has not been the act of violence she and the Maoists envisaged at the time. Within eight months of her article the Maoists abandoned their war, having joined mainstream parties in a street movement which eventually toppled the monarchy.

This year the former guerrillas have won an election, Nepal became a republic and, as of August 15th, the Maoists’ leader, known as Prachanda, meaning fierce, is prime minister. After months of bickering among the political parties, a huge majority of the assembly elected in April voted him in. Prachanda described himself as very emotional. Three days later he was sworn in by another newcomer, Nepal’s first president, Ram Baran Yadav. Not surprisingly, the Maoist broke with tradition by swearing to be faithful to Nepal in the name of the people, rather than of God. He also wore Western clothes (another first) but made a gesture to national custom by donning a traditional Nepali cap.

It has been an astonishing transformation. For over a year the Maoists have been part of Nepal’s transitional government, heading ministries and becoming ambassadors. Until now, however, they have always seemed to have one foot outside the government: threatening, for instance, to revolt and launch massive street protests if things did not go their way. Many Nepalis say they voted Maoist for fear that the ex-rebels might go back to war, a fear fuelled by local Maoists’ threats. Now they have a chance to change the government from the inside, not the outside.

It is still not clear just how revolutionary the Maoists intend to be. Some of their ideological comrades abroad were aghast at their making peace and joining the democratic process. Many poor Nepalis will wonder whether, after ten years of war costing 13,000 lives, the Maoists will now sink into the comforts of power and prestige and forget them. The Maoists will have to prove them wrong. Their election manifesto called this the era of capitalist democracy in Nepal and stressed that the private sector is intrinsic to their plans. But they also promise revolutionary land reform based on the principle of land to the tiller, equal rights for women and lowly castes, and much else. Now they must work out what this means in practice.

More immediately Prachanda must reassert the authority of the state, which has been badly eroded over the past two years as crime has spiralled and ethnic groups clamoured for their rights. He must also decide the future of the Maoists’ 19,000-strong army, most of which is still confined in camps under a UN-assisted peace process; in particular, how it might be combined with the Nepalese Army. He has already been in talks with his former arch-foe, the army chief, on this and other matters. In Nepal the once unthinkable is beginning to seem almost inevitable.