Obstacles overcome, the NC and Maoists have run out of excuses not to go for elections.

Both parties have abandoned their secret plot to evade polls, and a hardline Maoist clique that wanted their party to quit the government has come around.

The only lingering danger is a deliberate attempt by extremists of both the left and right to sabotage elections by adding fuel to the tarai fires, or stepping up violence against candidates in the hills.

Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal are Nepal's two most-powerful men. But they were also the most nervous about elections. Both knew they'd fare badly so they maneuvered to add dissidents to the interim parliament and convert it into a constituent assembly without elections.

It was an ill-conceived and ill-concealed plan, one that would have cost the government the little legitimacy it had. Still, they'd probably have pulled it off had they not been warned off by the internationals.

Now that they can't avoid facing voters, the only way the kangresis can make up for lost ground and lift sagging cadre morale is by reuniting with the NC-D. It will also want to set itself apart from republicans to bag the estimated 40 percent of voters who want to retain a symbolic kingship. Since the election will effectively be a referendum on the monarchy, this will be a critical campaign issue.

The Maoists have come out of their central committee intact, and their radical rhetoric of rebellion seems to have been for internal consumption only. The plenum resolution on republic and proportional representation therefore shouldn't be seen as an ultimatum but as the party's campaign platform.

Dahal's biggest challenge now is to make the YCL and other hotheads behave so that their militancy will not wreck his party's chance in elections. The Maoists have come out of their meetings this week by actually looking like a more democratic party than the NC.

They have also re-committed themselves to the peace process and the 12-point agreement. Now, to fare well in elections all the ex-guerrillas need to do is show they have abandoned violence once and for all and that they stand for pluralism.

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