Ever since Rana prime minister Padma Shamsher granted the first written constitution in 1948, Nepalis have longed for laws made for the people, of the people, and most importantly, by the people.

But that expectation for an elected assembly to draft a constitution has remained unfulfilled. In a farcical repetition of history, parties that represent the people are once more having cold feet about elections being held in November. It looks like instead trying to hold polls, politicians again want to hold them off. But there is no turning back now.

Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala's commitment to elections seems to be intact despite thinking aloud about taking a shortcut and converting the interim parliament into a constitutional assembly. Even so, revitalising and reuniting the NC must be his first priority. The Maoists hounded the NC out of the hills, and the Madhes Uprising weakened its hold in the tarai. The kangresi rank and file feels elections can wait for a more opportune moment when their party has regained lost ground.

That's a prospect Koirala the party president finds hard to ignore, but Koirala the prime minister wants elections to be held on schedule. Which will he be: party boss or elder statesman?

The Maoists are even more nervous about elections. Pushpa Kamal Dahal has come under intense pressure at his extended central committee meeting that ended Wednesday, even though he astutely staved off militant-minded dissidents.

The supremo has realised that he has lost considerable support in his base areas. And the madhes movement decimated Maoist networks in the eastern tarai. A lot of the radical rhetoric that came out of the factory floor in Balaju this week was meant for internal party consumption.

Only the UML has been consistently serious about elections, and that could be because its internal party investigation has shown its candidates will do well. That is why Madhab Kumar Nepal has been urging Koirala and Dahal not to get cold feet.

Now with two Alfa Males of Nepali politics having overcome their doubts about elections, it seems to be all systems go. the only spanner in the works can now be reactionaries, fundamentalists or royalists disturbing the polls by provoking unrest in the next three months.

It must be civil society and the people who must put pressure on the parties to stay the course. They must ensure that the parties don't look at the elections as a zero-sun game. No matter who wins in November, everyone wins.

It is not a general election, after all, just a mechanism to select people who will decide how this country will be governed in the future.

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. New Song