KATHMANDU: Friday’s appointment of a new government by Nepal’s King Gyanendra has set the stage for a showdown with political parties, which are still stunned and dazed by his sudden assumption of all executive powers last week.

Exactly a week after dismissing an elected government and taking all executive powers himself, King Gyanendra appointed former Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand, 63, as the new prime minister.

Eight other members have also been appointed in the new cabinet, including Anuradha Koirala, a well-known campaigner against trafficking in women and children.

The king tasked the prescribed specific tasks for the new government: primarily to build a conducive environment for peace and to hold general elections at the earliest date possible.

However, he did not hand over all executive control to the government. More importantly, King Gyanendra did not fix a date for general elections.

That leaves Nepal without a parliament and no fixed dates for an election for the first time in the 12 years that this Himalayan nation has been a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy.

Parliament was dissolved in May and new elections announced for Nov 13, but King Gyanendra postponed the polls indefinitely when he sacked the elected government last week.

As a result, the major political parties are angry and see the King’s appointment of a new government as a ham-fisted attempt to bypass political parties and parliament, the pillars of any democratic society.

“This is unacceptable,” said Arjun Narsingh K.C, spokesman of the largest party, the Nepali Congress. “It is unexpected, too. We were expecting the king to invite political parties to form the new government.”

The ousted prime minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, whom the king sacked on Oct 4, said, “this is unconstitutional and undemocratic.”

The Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist), the largest leftist group in Nepal, also slammed the new government. “The King should have listened to the parties rather than go it alone,” said Madhav Kumar Nepal, the general secretary of the party.

Six major political parties had earlier banded together to demand a joint meeting with the King and to ask for a new government comprising of all six parties. But King Gyanendra rejected the demand, meeting the parties separately and choosing a prime minister and ministers of his liking.

The rest of the cabinet members were chosen from academia, the business sector and the social service sector, and are not affiliated with any political party.

The new government includes well-known women’s and children’s rights advocate Koirala, who has been appointed a junior minister for women and social welfare.

Nepal’s former representative to the United Nations, Narendra Bikram Shah, is the new foreign minister, and Badri Prasad Shrestha, an economist, is the new finance minister.

Nepal’s two large political parties, the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) are not represented in the government.

A showdown therefore is most likely on the cards. Nepal is celebrating the annual Dashain religious holidays at the moment, so the entire country has shut down. But once the nation opens up for business later this week, political parties are likely to mobilize against the king’s latest action.

Analysts say that would bode ill for the fledgling democracy and constitutional monarchy Nepal adopted in 1990 after a violent people’s movement.

That movement curtailed the powers of the monarch and turned him into a constitutional monarch. King Gyanendra has clearly turned the clock back by his actions, and the parties are not likely to sit idly by, they say.

“By appointing a prime minister close to the Palace, the King is sending a message that he is not likely to remain mute in these troubled times,” said Narayan Wagle, a political commentator. “It could lead to a confrontation between the monarch and political parties.”

The new prime minister, Chand, a leader of the rightist National Democratic Party (NDP), has been Nepal’s prime minister several times before, the last time in 1997 when he headed a coalition government.

Chand is known to be close to the Palace and has served as prime minister even during the days of the absolute monarchy, prior to 1990.

Immediately after being appointed on Friday, Chand told reporters: “The first priority of my government will be to improve the security situation in the country and hold general elections.”

Asked if he would talk with the Maoist rebels who are waging a seven-year violent campaign for a republican state, Chand said, “I will try to build a conducive environment for talks with the Maoists.”

The Maoists, who emerged in early 1996, have waged a violent campaign to turn this monarchy into a republic. So far, nearly 6,000 people have died in the insurgency.

The deteriorating security environment led former prime minister Deuba to advise King Gyanendra to defer the Nov 13 elections by more than a year.

That precipitated the current crisis, as the King rejected Deuba’s advice and sacked his government last week.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.