NEPAL: King Gyanendra's last stand is proving to be as bloody as many feared. The deaths of at least four more protesters in pro-democracy rallies across the Kathmandu valley on Thursday, taking the toll over the past three weeks to more than 10, are the sign of a monarch determined to go to the negotiating table only on his own terms.
By seeking to prevent Nepal's seven-party alliance from mustering large numbers in the streets of the capital, he hoped to prevent them claiming a popular mandate for the full restoration of democracy.
His strategy failed. And last night his television appeal to the opposition to appoint a prime minister did little to calm the anger of a people who have lost what little trust they had in the king, and many of whom now insist that he must leave the stage altogether.
That anger now focuses on the demand for the establishment of a convention to draft a new democratic constitution, one that is most unlikely to succeed in reconciling the king's expressed wish last night for both a constitutional monarchy and multiparty democracy.
He made clear, moreover, that his offer to the opposition was that they should govern "in accordance with the constitution" which enshrines his own power.
"This is incomplete," said Minendra Risal of the Nepali Congress Democratic party, the largest of the opposition parties. "The constitutional assembly is the aspiration of the people."
He claimed that the protests would continue.
The movement against the king was initially prompted by the seven-party alliance's call for a general strike, now in its third week, but it has fast gained its own momentum.
It has drawn in sections of civil society that have stayed aloof from a protracted power struggle between discredited political parties allied with widely-loathed Maoist insurgents on one side and an unpopular monarch with absolutist ambitions on the other.
Professionals, business associations, civil servants and even families of security personnel have started supporting the pro-democracy movement.
The 12-point agreement the parties struck with the Maoist leadership in November outlined a maximalist position, involving elections to a new constituent assembly that would then draw up a new constitution.
An early move by the king to recognise that his vision for the restoration of an active monarchy was unacceptable to other political actors would have left him in a better position to negotiate.
However, 14 months after he seized power in a coup in February 2005 - ostensibly on the grounds that Nepal's political parties had failed to crush the Maoists and been unable to hold elections - King Gyanendra has little chance of now salvaging anything of his original ambition.
Not only has royal rule failed to deliver tangible benefits to a society racked by conflict, but his refusal to respond to peace overtures from the Maoists has handed the parties the popular peace ticket.
Even the US, which along with China and Hindu nationalists in opposition in India had been seen as one of his last remaining sources of external support, has been forced to ram home to the king the bankruptcy of his project.
His decision to impose direct palace rule in Nepal had "failed in every regard", the US State Department said last week.
US ambassador James Moriarty, speaking to Reuters television just two hours before the address, said the king had no choice but to relent.
"If he doesn't do that, I think the monarchy will not last and ... we are going to see a revolution inside Nepal. It would mean wider chaos and it would mean a good chance for the Maoist insurgents to take over this country."
As one western diplomat predicted somewhat accurately ahead of last night's broadcast, "my guess is that the king will try to squash the idea of a constituent assembly, sideline the Maoists and try to restore a limited form of democracy that leaves him holding the cards. The Maoists, however, will not let the parties sell them out." - (Financial Times Service, additional reporting Irish Times foreign staff)