After its leader was nominated prime minister by the king, the centre-right Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) is going through a power struggle which will climax in Pokhara on Saturday with the election of a new party boss. Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand and veteran RPP leader Surya Bahadur Thapa are battling it out for influence. Of the three contenders, Prakash Chandra Lohani and Rabindra Nath Sharma are considered Thapa loyalists, whereas Pashupati Shumsher Rana is close to Chand. Whoever wins, the RPP will keep its royalist tilt. "We can never criticise the monarch the way the Nepali Congress and CPN-UML are doing right now," Lohani told us. Thapa is a critic of the king's October Fourth move, while Chand has been trying to get his party's endorsement for his government.