Kathmandu: With the Seven Party Alliance's promised million-person march on the Nepalese capital less than 24 hours away, King Gyanendra finally appeared to blink with his emissaries indicating to the parties that the monarch might be willing to concede one of their key demands: revival of Parliament.

Even as the streets of Kathmandu witnessed spirited clashes between youthful demonstrators and the police, Monday saw some back and forth movement between the palace and key leaders of the SPA. "Even now, the clock is ticking and the King can't seem to make up his mind," Shekhar Koirala of the Nepali Congress told The Hindu , adding that since the announcement to dissolve Parliament came at midnight, Gyanendra could still reinstate the Assembly in the middle of the night. Diplomatic sources familiar with the back-channel negotiations said the King was looking at various legal options — primarily to do with forestalling Constitutional change — while the parties too felt obliged to consult the Maoists, with whom they have established a united front of sorts on the question of a roadmap to genuine democracy.

But as with all offers made by the Nepalese King so far, the revival of Parliament is unlikely to offer anything other than a very temporary respite for an increasingly beleaguered monarchy.

"If Parliament is reconvened, I think it would have less than 24 hours to announce its decision to hold elections for a Constituent Assembly," said Krishna Khanal, a key civil society leader of the democracy movement. "Otherwise the people will turn against the parties too."

He spoke to this reporter on the sidelines of a massive outdoor public meeting in the working-class Kathmandu suburb of Kirtipur. The mood in the meeting was distinctly republican and the 8,000 strong audience did not seem very inspired when one or two speakers from the SPA laid emphasis on revival of Parliament. According to Mr. Khanal, the Nepalese people will not settle for anything less than a Constituent Assembly. "There are basically three ways to get there," he said. "First, a revived Parliament decides immediately to go for it. Second, the King himself concedes the demand for elections to a Constituent Assembly. Or third, there is a mass upsurge which forces the King to leave." The third option, he added, would require the cooperation of the armed forces.

Assessment

Mr. Shekhar Koirala agreed with Mr. Khanal's assessment that a restored Parliament would have less than 24 hours to decide on a Constituent Assembly. "If the Maoists are to be brought into the mainstream and take part in multiparty elections, then there has to be Constitutional change." Mr. Koirala said that even though the King may say that Parliament had no right under the 1990 Constitution to convene a Constituent Assembly, the parties would invoke the doctrine of necessity to do so. "There is no room for legal hair-splitting now."

A senior South Asian diplomat concurred. "The only way out of the present crisis is for the King to bridge the gap between himself and the parties. And the only way he can do this is by surrendering on each of the demands raised by the SPA."

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