NEPAL: When Nepal's main political parties named four-time prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala yesterday to head a new government, the wheel had come full circle for the veteran politician.
In 1991, Mr Koirala became Nepal's first elected prime minister in 30 years when his social democratic Nepali Congress won elections after then king Birendra gave in to a popular and violent demand for multi-party democracy.
A similar mass campaign this month against King Gyanendra, - Birendra's brother who grabbed power last year - culminated in the monarch agreeing to step down and reinstating a dissolved parliament, leading to Mr Koirala's return.
In the intervening decade and a half, Mr Koirala (84) has watched Nepal plunge from the heady days of a new democracy to the brink of chaos.
He has himself been prime minister four times, reflecting the political instability that plagued the nation since 1991. Koirala's fifth time as prime minister is expected to be his most challenging.
"It was a nascent democracy. We all made mistakes, myself also," he told Reuters less than two weeks ago.
"But democracy is a system to address the mistakes also. People have realised it. In future, we will not make those mistakes," he said, referring to the misrule and corruption that plagued Nepali politics under multiparty democracy.
Analysts describe the chain-smoking, former trade union leader as stubborn, inflexible and, sometimes, inarticulate.
However, the politician who never went to college is also credited with introducing sweeping economic reforms and privatisation in the face of communist objections.
Nearly 60 years ago, Mr Koirala organised a strike in a jute mill against the then hereditary prime minister from the Rana family.
As punishment, he had to walk for 45 days from his home town, Biratnagar, in east Nepal, to Kathmandu.
Years later, when king Mahendra, father of the present monarch, banned political parties in 1960, Mr Koirala spent seven years in jail and later went into exile in neighbouring India for opposing absolute monarchy.
That spirit seems very much alive despite his failing health.
Dealing with Maoist rebels - fighting since 1996 to topple Nepal's monarchy and establish communist rule - is seen as Mr Koirala's toughest first task.
Analysts and political parties hope that Mr Koirala, a die-hard anti-communist, will prevail upon the Maoists. "We are democrats, and we have some responsibilities. I want to bring the non-democrats to the democratic, constitutional framework," he said, referring to the Maoists.