It does not take Schelling to see that bringing staunch republicans in the leadership will make our political parties stronger. The strength of political parties is the mass and recent demonstrations have clearly shown that the mass rallies only behind the slogan of republic. And let us not forget that the Maoists came to this point of their strength riding the wagon of republic. However, Ashu's conclusion that political parties can strengthen themselves by taking part in the election announced by the King is ridiculous. I doubt one can reach to that conclusion by applying Schelling's theory. I do not know much about Schelling's theory. So, only Ashu can tell whether he actually applied Schelling's theory to reach to the conclusion or he simply mentioned the theory to sound credible while serving his own incredible theory. Or somebody who is familiar with Schelling's theory. Here is one such person [name withheld rey kya] . This gentleman is a student of the Game Theory and his conclusion is quite different than Ashu's. I am taking liberty to post the theoretical part of the gentleman's argument shared in Nepal Democracy Google Group. Here it goes: ....My result, not surprisingly, is different from [Ashu's]. It uses elementary statistics and ordinary differential equation of first order. Model: The politics of Nepal after the parties Maoist pact can be defined as a two player game, in which there are two payoffs:{election under king for municipalities, election for constituent assembly}. Let it be considered as a standard war of attrition game in which two players make offer (2,1) alternately. If one refuses, then it is another person’s turn to make offer of same (2,1). Here, we can interpret 2 as constitutional assembly election for parties/Maoist pact, and 1 as election under king. For king, this is the other way. After the pact, the king understand that there is a probability p that the coalition of his opponent be coopted by the Maoist agenda, i.e. never gives up in its demand for constitutional assembly. Both player understand that the king is likely to give up at some finite time T (No one can rule forever, afterall). If it is sufficiently late, then former coalition might think it will be better off taking part in the election. Let F1(t) be the cumulative density function for the king’s surrender, such that there is a time T which is finite and at which F1(T)=1. As for coalition, if it goes Maoist’s way, it will never concede, but if it is prevailed by the parties, then there is a cumulative density function F2(t) of their giving up. We also assume that their discout rate is same, r. Result: In Bayesian Equilibrium, the alliance will not give up before time T (i.e. the time at which the king concedes with probability 1). Furthermore, in Bayesian Nash Equilibrium, it is strictly better off for the king to give up immediately: i.e. the king is better off not trying to hold on to the power. Proof: The proof has some ministeps. First, it should be obvious that the parties will not give up with probability 1 before time T. Why? Because suppose we think they will give up before T, at some point we call T’. Now, if they don’t give up at T’, the king will think that the alliance has coopted the Maoists agenda and will surrender immediately,which contradicts our assumption that T’