Three forces: (1) King (2) Maobadis (3) Parties. KING Good Points: (1) Represents the most deeply rooted institution in the country. (2) Effective, clever. (3) Will settle for Constitutional Monarchy and Multi-Party Democracy if forced to do so. Bad Points: (1) Does not "get" democracy. Talks all Mahendra talk when talking about political parties and the democratic experiment. (2) Inflexible on many counts, especially in opposing any possibility of a Constituent Assembly. (3) Cunning, not magnanimous. (4) Doubled royal budget after sacking Deuba first time around. That is brahmaloot, much larger what the Congressias did in the 1990s. (5) Surrounded by lackeys and yes-men, a small clique, holdovers from the Panchayat. MAOBADIS Good Points: (1) Have given voice to marginalized groups like women, dalits, janajatis, the poor. (2) Willing to find common ground with a Constituent Assembly. Bad Points: (1) Violence. Human rights abuses. Child soldiers. Abductions. Extortions. (2) Continued propagation of defunct Maoist and Old School Communist thinking. Ill-informed rants against India and the US. (3) Might not stop at Constituent Assembly. Might then set up a new goal of a "dictatorship of the proletariat." PARTIES Good Points: (1) The only long term hope for the people, for democracy, for rapid economic growth and large scale poverty alleviation, and rapid modernization of the country. (2) Non-violent. (3) Patient with the monarchy to an unusual degree. Bad Points: (1) Did not make the best use of democracy in the 1990s. Did not get together against corruption instead the Congress pretty much institutionalized it. Did not try to address the ethnic grievances of inequality. For socio-economic rifts in general. (2) Replaced one ruling class with another. (3) Not pragmatic in terms of uniting for the common cause of democracy. (4) Not flexible enough on the Constituent Assembly option so as to possibly get the Maoists to come into the mainstream. POSSIBLE COMMON GROUND: Constituent Assembly But only if the Maoists disarm prior to the elections. Possible way to getting there: UN mediation with the pre-conditinon that the Maoists must disarm. ALTERNATIVE: Maobadi-Monarchist bloodbath. Major human rights abuses by both sides. Political paralysis. Economic hell.