Keeping the ballot from becoming a crown

Perhaps the lure of a directly elected chief executive in Nepal comes from a strange mix of monarchical nostalgia and modernist impatience.

At an informal gathering in Jaleshwar recently, a retired teacher introducing himself as Jha Sir, with a pointed emphasis on the honorific, steered the discussion towards the resilience of the US Constitution despite the monarchical aura of its presidency. The immediate provocation was the Rastriya Swatantra Party’s decision at its Chitwan plenary to advocate a directly elected chief executive, fully proportional representation in Parliament, reduction in the number of local government units and abolition of provincial legislatures.