NEPAL: AS THE clock ticks towards Nepal's third attempt to hold nationwide elections following a historic peace agreement in 2006, hopes are fading for a breakthrough in negotiations that would see the polls take place in April.
Since the last postponement of elections in November, a shift in the centre of political gravity has taken place, with emergent Madheshi parties, representing the ethnic Hindus of the southern Terai area of Nepal who make up one-third of the population, obstructing elections with a list of preconditions.
An unwillingness by the Madheshi bloc to participate in the April poll that was finally due to transform the world's only Hindu kingdom into a republic, undermines the prospect of credible elections for a constituent assembly and is increasing tensions between the patchwork of ethnic groups that make up Nepal's population.
The constituent assembly elections are part of an ongoing peace process that followed the restoration of democracy in 2006 and ended a 10-year Maoist insurgency that cost 14,000 lives. The political deadlock has led to sporadic outbursts of ethnic violence and tensions throughout the country have reached boiling point, as water shortages and unprecedented queues for petrol and kerosene add to a growing list problems (such as the current eight-hours-a-day electricity cuts).
A general strike has also paralysed movement throughout the strategically important Terai area bordering India. The strike, now in its 12th day, has been called by the various Madheshi parties to pressurise the interim government, made up of a coalition of political parties (including the once outlawed Maoists), to meet the six election preconditions. "I feel like breaking the radio which repeatedly announces 'dialogue was inconclusive'," Gajendra Bhattari, from Nepal's second-largest city, Biratnagar, told the Kathmandu Postnewspaper, as his family of four and 16 employees struggle to cope with the shortages.
The feverish atmosphere that surrounds long queues at petrol station forecourts, where buying rationed fuel can take up to 48 hours, and in corner shops with new stocks of kerosene, has led to frustrated customers occasionally obstructing roads with burning types.
The deteriorating situation has forced the government to impose daily curfews along transport routes in Terai, as well as using the army to drive trucks to replenish supplies and calm fears in Kathmandu and elsewhere.
The government has agreed to meet five of the Madheshi demands, but says it fears that the final demand to recognise the Terai area as a single autonomous state with the right to self-determination would lead to a disintegration of the country. The government insists the issue should form part of political discussions in the new constituent assembly immediately after elections.
The Madheshi parties, however, are mistrustful of promises made by a Kathmandu political elite which in the past has ignored the rights of ethnic and other marginalised groups in Nepal's traditionally caste-based society.
With the deadline for the submission of candidates' names for elections passing last week and all but the Madheshi parties complying, time is running out for the election commission to prepare for elections on April 10th.
Another postponement of Nepal's first nationwide elections since the 1990s will further undermine ordinary Nepalis' faith in the governing parties and the nascent democracy they fought hard to achieve through a people's movement that dislodged the 240-year-old monarchy in 2006.