The Justice-in-Chief is wavering about taking on BRB’s offer to lead an election govt. Being a lawyer, he looked at the fine print, and it did look like he was going to be a puppet with the strings being pulled by the all-party mechanism. The parties have left it up to PM BRB to convince the CJ, since the two Balu Water neighbours have long been in cahoots. Because there was so much to-ing and fro-ing across the wall between the CJ and PM compounds, they’ve now installed a door to make it easier for the CJ and PM to sneak in and out without waking up the guards. Incidentally, this trap door was also used by the 12 leaders of the 4 parties to cajole the CJ on Wednesday night.

Whose ever brainwave it was to make the CJ lead the gobblement, it was truly inspired. But just so we have all bases covered, it may be necessary to think about alternative non-political independent personalities in case Regmi gets cold feet. Here is a list:

  • Gyanendra Shah
  • Shortest Man Chandra Bdr Dangi
  • Charles Shobraj
  • Miss Nepal Shristi Shrestha
  • DJ Tantrik
  • Pahupati ko Bhatta

There may be a slight unanticipated problem, though, what is the CJ going to do when as head of government he has to share the podium with Bal Krishna Dhungel whom he sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and whom the PM who made him CJ had released?

When the CJ does take over his job as the Temporary Chair of the Interim Provisional Election Adhoc Mechanism, his first order of business will be to set up an 11-member cabinet. To help him decide, here is a list of jokey nominations on FB:

Prime Minister: Chief of Justice

Home Minister: Chief of Police

Defence Minister: Chief of Army

Finance Minister: Chief of Central Bank Information Minister: Chief Editor, Gorkhapatra

Tourism Minister: Chief of NAC

Supplies Minister: Chief of NOC

Energy Minister: Chief of NEC

Foreign Minister: Chief of Non-Resident Nepali International Cordination Council

Health Minister: Chief of Trauma Centre

Now that their days are numbered, members of the Cabinet are raking it in as if there is no tomorrow. And guess what the Ministry of Traffic Jams managed to sneak through as one of its last decisions: lift the ban on new taxi licences and award 2,500 new ones. With those new cabs on the streets, they will have to widen the roads all over again.

Embassies that stubbornly resisted pressure from the Valley Road-Widening Authoritarians must be heaving a sigh of relief that the BRB govt is finally stepping down, thinking they will now stop getting letters to demolish their perimeter walls. With a prime minister who had done his PhD in urban planning planning to leave, it is clear that the justice of the supremo court will not be land-grabbing. Who knows, road widening may even come to a grinding halt.

But just as they thought they didn’t have to worry about the road, wham! Embassies got letters last week from the NEA to pay a minimum flat rate of Rs 30,000 for their electricity bills. Dips now have to pay for power supply that is not supplied. Besides being a violation of the Vienna Convention, they say it could also be construed as a crime against humanity.

Nepalis can proudly say we have the highest per capita number of national holidays. We had three New Years till recently: the Gregorian, Bikram, and Nepal Sumbuts. Now we have added at least six more Losars. Nepal also has the most number of Communist Parties, and the total has gone up to 22 with the breakaway Dash Baddies and the emergence last week of the Communist Party of Nepal (Che) to complement the CPN (Enver Hoxha).

‘Visit Nepal: The Land of Most Communist New Year Parties’.