Two events coincided with the Maoist central committee meeting this week. The admission by a Maoist guerrilla that some 1,000 inmates of the Nawalparasi cantonment have recently fled the camp accusing their seniors of not giving them the Rs 3,000 a month allowance they were due.

Then, there was the YCL action in Dolakha where the CDO became the target of terroristic outrage. Home Minister Krishna Sitaula who has by now lost all his credibility assured civil servants that their security would be guaranteed. But no one believes him.

It is getting difficult to say for sure that the behaviour of the attackers and the inaction of the Home Minister are not deliberate. The political parties and their leaders have been publicly making the constituent assembly election a life-or-death issue, but there is also a conspiracy to use the excuse of security to scuttle it.

Koirala has hatched a plan to induct dissident madhesi, janajati, and dalit into the interim parliament and turn that body into a constituent assembly for now. It is clear that Koirala has been bouncing this idea off the Maoists and UML. His only fear is that the international community may not go along with it, and the Indians have sent a clear message that this is just not on. So, the option is to cite deteriorating law and order and the madhes as an excuse not to hold elections. If the Maoists go along with this plan, that would be all Koirala needs. It's only India's negative reaction that has stopped him for now.

The prime minister has proposed to give the MJF 37 seats in the parliament, but Upendra Yadav put a spanner in the works by demanding that the interim parliament be disbanded. Koirala's plan will only work if the security situation gets worse, indeed he seems not at all interested in improving law and order. The inability of the police to control the YCL, the militant tarai groups running rampant, and Sitaula remaining put at home minister despite these failures all prove that Koirala is determined to let the situation deteriorate so much that elections will not be possible.

Prachanda's long meeting with Koirala just before his central committee meeting was obviously not about the Maoists leaving the government. It was to ask Koirala to understand why the Maoists had to be so critical of the government. All this goes to show that there is some kind of agreement at the highest levels of government. The fact that they are letting things drift is what arouses suspicion.

But the parties must improve the security situation, they must govern, they must let the UN fulfil its mandate on arms management and human rights and electoral code of conduct. Otherwise, the three leaders will take decisions behind closed doors to have their way.