By D.M. Thapa These days, many people are talking about how the helms of governance should go to the younger generation of political leaders. One TV channel dug even further and gave the birth date and ‘old’ age of the leaders, who still want to stay on in power, though they are weighed down by the traditional regulations of their respective parties. Though at the international level, persons till the age of seventy are called youths, here in Nepal the age is much lower and only persons till the age of forty are called the ‘younger generation’. That means, even if he is elected, a person like a famous young leader of the Nepali Congress, Gagan Thapa, will be an elder, so not much gain for those who are rooting for the younger generation to replace the old faces in major political parties. And till now the political scenario suggests that the ‘older generation’ still wants to stay at the helm of things and any young generation taking over is a pipe dream. At least the main opposition party, the CPN (UML) has portrayed old leader KP Sharma Oli as their future leader and also prime minister, though Oli is over seventy and also ailing from certain diseases. The Nepali Congress and the CPN (Maoist Center) have not been able to do even that. They have not been able to come to a conclusion on who will lead the next government if the present alliance wins in the upcoming elections. These three are the major parties of the country now, but they seem to be walking in darkness and they have not figured out how they will take the country out of the present mess it is in. It is indeed strange how the Nepali Congress and the Maoist Center have been able to forge an alliance when they have completely different political ideologies and how the supporters of these parties hate each other. As predicted by a political analyst, this coalition or alliance may last till the elections, but after that, there will be a ‘free for all’ scramble in the bid to lead the next government. At such a time, due to the immense pressure to keep intact the political alliance, a wily fellow like Madhav Nepal may get the opportunity to lead a completely new government provided that he has pleased the right ‘masters’ of this country. But one very certain thing is that the political fate of the nation does not lie in the hands of any of the current leaders of this country, whether from the older generation or the much touted younger generation. All such things are decided by foreign powers and the leaders have no option, but to follow the instructions of their foreign bosses. There is no doubt that this sort of direct foreign interference became more apparent after the introduction of multi-party democracy in the country, when while expressing support for governments here, India was housing and giving safe shelter to many Nepali political leaders, mainly from the Nepali Congress and later on also the Maoists. It was alleged in many newspapers that these leaders were not only given a safe shelter, but also some ‘pocket money’ for them to survive in India. While India was one of the first nations to dub the Maoists as terrorists, even before the Nepal government did this, they were clandestinely arming this same group and also giving ‘pocket money’ and a safe shelter to many Maoist leaders. To go to a completely newer issue, the political leaders here seem to be showing total double standards exactly like their foreign bosses are doing. For example, the United States and its allies are shouting hoarse about bringing peace to war-torn Ukraine, but can this be achieved when the Westerners themselves are giving new weapons and big amounts of money to the rulers in that country? It was also disgusting to see the Ukrainian war being brought to the front even in a tennis tournament like the US Open, which ended about a fortnight back. The official at the tournament proudly said how they had collected two million dollars for the Ukrainian cause. Is this fair play from a country which preaches political freedom in other countries while it brings politics into a straightforward sports game? Similarly, our political leaders also seem to be lost about what they should do if they are elected. With the election just about two months away, that is also interrupted by the two biggest festivals of the majority of people in the country, Dasain and Tihar, they are only accusing one another of what wrongs they have committed. In the past, they always had a handy target of the monarchy, no matter what happened due to their own mistakes. But now, with no such ‘punching bag’ around, they are at the throats of one another in a ‘no holds barred’ tug of war before the election. Such an attitude of the government and the opposition parties led by the CPN (UML) is even more unappetizing for the people to swallow. So comparing the hypocritical attitude of the Western leaders in most parts of the world, where they say they want peace but they are actually helping fuel further the violence in such countries, it is virtually the same with our own leaders talking about the welfare of the people, while they themselves are acting as obstacles to any wellbeing or prosperity of the public. What sort of an election the country will see, no one can tell, neither can even political leaders say confidently what the voters have in mind while voting for them. One thing, as we mentioned at the beginning, is that none of the major parties will be able to garner a comfortable majority to form any government single-handedly, but the presence of independent candidates will definitely be felt, whether they win or lose. So no matter how the political leaders present themselves and their parties in a ‘sugar coated’ manner, the people are fed up with such lies and they want to see a properly developed nation and not a country which is pushed to the limits by incompetent leaders, looking only after their own benefits and caring about the sufferings of the people.