US embassy cable - 02KATHMANDU1947

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KATHMANDU 001947 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SA/INS 
LONDON FOR POL - RIEDEL 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/07/2012 
TAGS: PGOV, NP, Political Parties, Government of Nepal (GON) 
SUBJECT: NEPAL:  PARTIES SCRAMBLE FOR CONSENSUS AS DEADLINE 
NEARS 
 
REF: A. (A) KATHMANDU 1938 
     B. (B) KATHMANDU 1932 
 
Classified By: DCM ROBERT K. BOGGS.  REASON:  1.5 (B,D). 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1.  (C) As the deadline set by King Gyanendra for nominations 
to an interim Cabinet approaches, politicians are scrambling 
to patch together a consensus response to the monarch's 
dismissal of the government of former Prime Minister Sher 
Bahadur Deuba and his assumption of executive power October 4 
(Ref B).  Having met with the King individually over the past 
few days, party leaders are urging him to accept a group 
meeting in which they can press a joint position.  Most of 
the largest parties have agreed that the caretaker Prime 
Minister and his new Cabinet should be drawn from the 
political arena and chosen on the basis of consensus. 
Whether or not the habitually quarrelsome parties can develop 
such a consensus by the October 9 deadline set by the King 
remains unclear.  But many political leaders are increasingly 
fearful that he has already made up his mind about the 
composition of his new Cabinet and will forge ahead--with or 
without the parties' consent.  End summary. 
 
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CONSENSUS ON CONFRONTING THE KING 
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2.  (C)  As the October 9 deadline set by King Gyanendra for 
nominations to a caretaker government approaches (Ref B), 
leaders of six major political parties are working feverishly 
to develop consensus on how to respond to the monarch's 
dismissal of the government of former Prime Minister Sher 
Bahadur Deuba and his move to set up a new Cabinet.  (Note: 
As reported Ref A, Deuba's Nepali Congress Party (Democratic) 
has apparently decided not to participate in the new 
government and is not joining in the inter-party discussions. 
 Deuba did meet privately with the King October 7.  End 
note.)  According to former Finance Minister Ram Sharan 
Mahat, the six parties have decided to extract guarantees 
from the King to respect three conditions.  First, the new 
Prime Minister should be a political person.  Second, the new 
Cabinet should be comprised of politicians in a similar ratio 
to those present in the most recent Parliament (giving an 
advantage to G.P. Koirala's Nepali Congress Party).  Finally, 
the Prime Minister should be determined on the basis of 
consensus from the six political parties that had MPs in the 
previous Parliament.  The parties are likely to meet later in 
the evening October 8 to articulate their joint position. 
Jhala Nath Khanal of the Communist Party of Nepal - United 
Marxist Leninist (UML), the largest Opposition party, later 
echoed many of Mahat's points, noting that the UML "would 
find it difficult to participate" in a new Cabinet that had 
not been formed on the basis of "an all-party understanding." 
 The parties also have a number of technical questions about 
the powers of the interim Cabinet they want clarified before 
committing to participation (Ref A). 
 
3.  (C)  How exactly to impress their message upon the King 
presents a problem for the parties, however.   Apparently 
espousing the rubric about safety in numbers, they have been 
pressing the Palace to accept a group meeting in which all 
six party leaders present the joint position.  Prabhakar 
Rana, a businessman with close ties to the Palace, told the 
Ambassador October 8 that the King has so far staunchly 
resisted that overture, preferring instead to meet each 
leader individually.  If the parties are unable to give the 
King their suggestions for a Cabinet by the deadline, the 
King will move ahead on his own, Rana indicated.  Individual 
party leaders who have met the King over the past few days 
understand the King's impatience as well, and are reportedly 
uneasy about a "take-it-or-leave-it" attitude they perceive 
in Gyanendra.  Mahat said many expressed concern that the 
King has already made up his mind about the composition of 
the new Cabinet.  The King needs the support of the political 
parties, with their extensive grass-roots organizations, if 
he hopes to win a hearts-and-minds battle against the Maoists 
in rural areas, Mahat said; in fact the King needs their 
support more than they need his.  Khanal said UML leader 
Madhav Nepal, who met the King October 6, was "a little bit 
worried" that the King appeared to harbor "negative 
impressions" about political parties derived from "wrong 
information" fed to him by self-interested Palace sycophants. 
 
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AND THE CONSENSUS CANDIDATE IS . . . . 
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4.  (C) Although the parties may have decided the new PM 
should be a "consensus candidate," reaching consensus on the 
identity of that candidate may also be problematic when/if 
they meet later October 8.  (Note:  We've heard the name of 
Surya Bahadur Thapa, a former PM and current President of the 
National Democratic Party, Nepal's third largest party, is 
being floated.  End note.)  Mahat acknowledged that attaining 
consensus on such an important question among the six 
fractious parties will be difficult.  Khanal said 
optimistically that his party was ready to forward names for 
the Cabinet as soon as it received "a positive signal" from 
the King on the stipulated concerns.  When asked if the UML 
would back "a consensus candidate" that could come from 
another party, Khanal said the UML believes "the need of the 
hour" calls for all parties and all supporters of multi-party 
democracy to be united.  "If we're divided, it will be a pity 
for the country."  When pressed, however, he acknowledged the 
practical difficulties of the six parties formulating a 
consensus slate within the limited time remaining. 
 
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COMMENT 
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5.  (C) The King's action seems to be achieving the 
near-impossible:  shocking the usually contentious political 
parties into all-too-rare alignment and cooperation, however 
temporary that may be.  It is regrettable, however, that the 
threat the Maoist insurgency poses to multi-party democracy 
was never deemed a similar "need of the hour" by these same 
parties.  While the Palace has indicated it may relax some of 
the requirements it stipulated against members of the new 
Cabinet running in the next election (Ref A), it seems 
unlikely that the King will bend his standards enough to 
permit the same old faces--especially that of former PM G.P. 
Koirala--to resurface in the Cabinet.  Decisiveness is not 
the political parties' strong suit; the longer they dither, 
the faster the deadline approaches.  If the parties fail to 
meet the October 9 deadline set by the King, they will be 
hard pressed to explain why they were unable to rise to this 
offer.  By all indications, October 9 may see a confrontation 
between Gyanendra's challenge and the parties' preconditions. 
MALINOWSKI