It was hard to shake off the feeling of déjà vu as the picture of Sushil Koirala on his hospital bed peered from the front pages of the newspaper the day after his election victory as Nepali Congress's new leader.

He was admitted to the hospital with a case of pneumonia merely hours after he was announced the president of the party. Candidates fielding for major political leadership positions may not have to present a clean sheet of medical report here, so we should perhaps be happy they issue pictures of themselves smiling as the nurses tape intravenous drips on their wrists. After all, they make Frank Delano Roosevelt look like a big scam artist.

You can treat sickness, but not old age. Sushil Koirala may seem like a newly hatched chicken compared to the octogenarian ex-president of the party, but at 72 he is among the lucky 3.7 per cent of the population that goes on to live beyond 65 years of age. Not to forget the fact that the total median age in Nepal is 20 years old. We are an incredibly young country. The leaders are not.

More than half of the newly elected NC's Central Working Comittee are above 50. A majority of the 'youth' members are above 40, only five are below 40. The NC calls itself a serious challenger to the Maoists. When the Maoists led the government in 2008, the party sat in the opposition "to play an active role in the constitution-making". It wanted to preserve freedom, analyse the government's drawbacks and shape policies. Now, its 66-year-old senior leader Ram Chandra Poudel is vying to lead the government. Democracy is supposed to be about choices, freedom, and hope.

At its General Convention, however, the NC showed it was unable to move with the times, unable to adapt to the changing reality. A recent report pointed out that the age gap between the median age of the population and their leaders is higher in developing countries whereas opposite it true for developed countries. No surprise then that 40-year-old Ed Miliband was elected the leader of the Labour Party in the UK this week.

There is also a direct relationship between a country's rank in the failed states list and the age of their leaders, as some of the oldest leaders in the world will testify: Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak, Cuba's Raul Castro and Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki and Burma's Than Shwe.

Age is just a number, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh might say, who in his 78th year is steadfast in thoughts and physical movements. It is also true that with age one acquires a wealth of experience and wisdom.
Old patterns, however, are still alive and well in our political system and while there is the chatter about New Nepal, it would serve us well if the old indeed gave the new faces a chance.

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Merry go round, PUBLISHER'S NOTE
Unreported reportages, CK LAL