Vishontar-jyu, I am in a total surprise and a little bit disappointed too to see that you are making a quite inaccurate and funny assumption about my view regarding the Maoists. >Nepe Dai see danger from king and safety from Maoists. I do not see "safety" from any political party. Until very recently (just before Jana Andolan II), I was hoping and wishing for a new political force (eventually to give rise to a new republican democratic party-- with new faces as well as clean and progressive leaders STOLEN from all political parties !). I was hoping the initial razzle-dazzle of pro-republic civil society might be what I was dreaming. I can bring you a ton of my writings (from Sajha, from NDF and my personal communication with some of civil society people) to show you how desperate I was to convince everybody that a new political party is a need of the day and how it can be done. Anyway, this turned out to be futile and I guess I accepted it as a reality. This was just to give you some idea about how I was looking for a better alternative to the Maoists. Now back to "safety" thing, to me, the safety [net] of our nation, particularly after witnessing in Jana Andola II people's fearless willingness to fight for their right, is the ordinary people of Nepal and nobody else. It is my recently strengthened faith in the credible power of the common people of Nepal and their credible willingness to use that power when necessary that makes me see the Maoists much less "dangerous" than I used to think once. That's when I consider the Maoists singly. If Maoists are to be compared with other political forces/parties as regard to "danger" to democracy, my view might surprise you, well until you understand it fully. Among three forces, the palace, SPA and the Maoists, I think the one that poses the biggest threat to democracy (practice of democracy, that is) comes from SPA (particularly NC) ! Before you (or anybody reading this post) jump, please note carefully that I am talking about the democracy as practiced. I am not talking about democracy in paper. Then-- this is very important-- I am talking about REAL threat, not THEORETICAL threat. With these two important limitation in place, I now can explain how "democratic" parties instead of the palace or the Maoists possesses the biggest threat to future democracy of Nepal. Let's start with considering the "threat" ability of these three forces: Palace: Almost dead. There is no significant REAL threat from it to democracy. The common portrayal of the palace as a threat is nothing but an economic way to keep it suppressed. That's all. So, now we have two parties left. Now, let's consider their chances to malpractice/deviate from democracy. The Maoists: Everybody is watching them. A slightest deviation from their agreed commitment will be noted. NC/SPA: Their democratic credential is granted. They are unsuspected, unwatched and are, therefore, more likely to malpractice democracy. As a matter of fact, not only from simple logical/statistical point of view, but also from their unchanged behaviors and the absence of any sign of willingness to change their past behavior (unaccountability, lack of internal democracy and so on), there is a very good chance that they might disappoint the common people once again like before. Do you know what will that (hopefully not, but if ever happened) do ? It will eradicate people's faith in democracy completely and there is only one direction to go after that- anarchy, dictatorship and invasion. So, this is how the unchanged (and unwilling to change) NC/SPA is the un-noticed (un-noticeable) biggest REAL threat to democracy. How we remove that ? How else ? By reforming these parties to make them more accountable and internally democratic. And how do we that ? By preaching ? No way. By devising legislative and legal system to enforce that. When an ordinary cadre of NC can drag Koirala to a court of law for violating the party statute or an ordinary citizen can sue a political party for breaking the law or the promise, consider them changed/reformed. That's what we need. I think it should be one of major agendas for our Constituent Assembly. Unfortunately, nobody is talking about it yet (everybody is busy stoning the King and lashing the Maoists !). However, I am hopeful they will. If I am ever to run for CA, these will be among agenda I will promote. Any voters ? Nepe