10TH HANDICRAFT FAIR IN NOV. Kathmandu, 8June;The 10th handicraft trade fair will be held in the capital 22 to 26 November. Commerce ministry and Nepal Trade Promotion and Export Promotion Center will cooperate to conduct the fair and FNCCI will support it. nnnn OPINION ALL PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES Kathmandu, 8 June: Why was so much time and energy spent on the issue of whether the president in the new constitution should be invested with executive power or not? It all came from the hyper-ambitions of Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal who sees himself as the first president under the new constitution. He does not want to become a decorative head of state but someone with executive powers, Trikal Vastavik writes in People’s Review.. Behind that screen of plastic smile, Dahal masks a cunning and calculating mind that firmly believes that everything is acceptable in love and politics. He enjoys alcohol, good food, expensive clothes, expensive cars and luxurious lifestyle, although these were supposed to be anti-people during the Maoist rebellious decade when 16,000 Nepalis were killed and tens of thousands of others were caned black and blue, some of them disabled. He is quick to suggest to his party members and other party leaders to "let us go to some resort and meet at a better setting." He sends advance teams for arranging such sojourns that more than smack of European monarchs of the 18th century like Louis XIV, who is known for his statement, "I am the state." A couple of hotel operators have confided to this author that such trips made by "him" are bothersome. Other guests try to keep away for quite some time from the hotel after the Maoists "pay very, very little" for the services rendered, the food eaten and the rooms occupied. Usually, the Maoists carry their own alcohol of the expensive Whiskey nothing less than black label. What are Pushpa Kamal's calculations behind the confidence he exudes in making his quarters at Shital Niwas in 2013? Others praying that they get the job include Ram Baran Yadav, Parmananda Jha, Subas Nembang, Madhav Kumar Nepal and Sushil Koirala. Ram Baran thinks that his showing "concerns" over the state of affairs in the country will earn him many supporters when the election time comes. He would, however, hesitate to take the plunge if he senses that someone like Pushpa Kamal contested against him. This would be too big a risk for an incumbent president of a country whose voters sway with dramatic predictability. Jha raised a ruckus when he first took his oath of office as vice-president. He tried to give the impression that he was first a Madehsi more than anything else. Within a year or so he realized, or was advised with the wisdom of hindsight by some remote control, to play with the mainstream politics and changed his style, tone and public postures, making impertinent remarks when compared to what his counterparts in South Asia and elsewhere, including the United States, do. He wants to replace Ram Baran through the same mechanism that made him VP. Subas Nembang has been angling for the top post ever since he helped insert "secular" in the Interim Constitution. He is from the ethnic community, was promoted as senior advocate when was well into the Speakership of the House of Representatives. His party, CPN (UML), he feels, deserves an opportunity to have its candidate placed at Shital Niwas. Madhav Kumar Nepal, who fulfilled his prime ministerial ambitions even after losing from two constituencies in the general elections, thinks that with NC support he could make it to the high placed job. His kitchen cabinet rates him "far higher" than Sushil [Koirala]. Bitter that he had to quit the post basically on account of his UML chief Jhala Nath Khanal, is nursing an ambition to be fielded for the president's job next year. Should he enter the race, Nembang would be relegated to a minister or so, if not a repeat at his existing post which saw him doing nothing of any significance, except making speeches at every forum he is offered. Madhav Kumar hopes that New Delhi does not want Pushpa Kamal to head the republic. Madhav's credentials includehis average student of a daughter securing Indian scholarship to study in a prestigious Indian institute overtaking hundreds of others, who had better academic scores. Sushil Koirala, the Nepali Congress president, known more for being a kind of the late Girija Prasad Koirala's shadow than of any notable leadership or having discharged any official public role, is also advised by his coterie to present himself as a presidential candidate. Krishna Prasad Shitaula, keen to one become the NC's next prime ministerial candidate after general elections, wants his party boss not to compete for the prime minister's job. But Pushpa Kamal has his calculations clear. He expects the Christian lobby to repay their debts to him by mobilizing their people to cast their votes for the man whose world is supposedly godless. Ek Nath Dhakal, the lone MP representing the Family Party through the proportionate list, is a telling score to underscore this analysis. He is bending backward to accept New Delhi's "advice" channeled through Jayant Prasad. The series of events in the recent events culminating in the drafting of the new constitution bear testimony to this. Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, who according to Pushpa Kamal's coterie till a few seasons ago that he was New Delhi's point man in Kathmandu, is believed to have vowed to help him land in the chair he craves for so lustily. Which way the Madhesi votes will go on whose prodding is no secret. He feels that if New Delhi blinks, India-friendly groups in all parties will blink. This way he would the Federal Republic's first elected president with executive powers. It was insistence that divided the executive powers of the prime minister between the head of the state and head of government. Used to have his way among the major political groups, the scheming mind goes to any extent for achieving his ambitions. Statesmanship is beyond Pushpa Kamal's interest or capacity. The end, to him, justifies the means, even if the end is solely narrow consideration and not of any democratic and national significance. He will give anything to reach the post not in any belief that he would bring about any meaningful transformation in the country or even the state apparatus but personal aggrandizement. Dahal fumed and fretted against his deputy Baburam Bhattarai last year while his loyalists planted rumors that Bhattarai was the point of a "foreign force." The Maoist supremo has done nothing to dissociate himself from the grave charges against the man who polled the largest number of votes in the 2008 polls under a hail of propaganda that voters could be traced by "super satellite camera watching from the skies." The past few months have witnessed a usual rapport between Dahal and Bhattarai, whatever the grave charges made against the latter. Everything, the Maoist duo's dictionary is fair in personal ambitions and politics; consistency and principles of purpose are only for academics! And our fate is supposed to hang in the balance held by their likes. nnnn