" The total annihilation of the feudal structure, which protected the monarchy, and which, as in the post-1990 revolution, will probably continue to protect the political elites, should have been the ultimate goal of the recent movement" I don't think it is possible to start anew in Nepal at this point of time, and whether the leaders like the institition of monarchy or not, they know they cannot simply do away with it. Despite their amazing stupidity they seem to realize that Nepal is served better with the institution, than without it. So far the parties' position on the King is vague for understable reasons. They don't know how to manage the transition after the traditional strcture comes crumbling down, and they know that the new institution will need a long long time to institutionalzie itself in Nepali pshyce. And given today's volatile situation, they know that in the absence of the old structure, the nation is either going to find itself in a long civil war, or will see a system that is not favorable to them. So far the political parties' strategy seems to be, as one recent artilce in nepali himal states, raja dekhayera janata tarsaune, janata dekhayera raja tarsaune. This time they succeeded in having their demands met by making the crowds chant republican slogans, but if you recall, many parties are still vague on the issue of monarchy. They just don't know what to do with it. And in the absence of any clear cut vision and plan, their best bet is to keep it. Let's not forget Nepali people have a very short-term memory and the political ideology(-ies) is not highly developed. Today we rally for Girija, tomorrow we are against him. Or Yesterday we were chanting "yespali ko haija girija lai laija" and today we are making him our "biggest democracy fighter"... We also seem to forget that even during the course of this 7 party-led birodh since october 2004, many times they have broken their alliance to serve their own individual power aspirations.. and have compromised with the King. This is actually quite scary. When you have this kind of irresponsible and devoid of fixed political values leaders and parties, and a young forgetful population, the nation will not see a developed functioning democracy. Of course some structural changes are necessary, I don't disagree with you on that, but those changes should be well thought out and gradual. No society remains stable when the traditional structure crumbles down all of a sudden. It takes a lot of planning, ideological education and persuassion BEFORE the structural change, if the new structure is to establish itself firmly. Its easier to talk about it, but its extreemely hard to put in practice, in my view.