Nepal King Agrees to Interim Opposition Rule : Democracy: One group would let the monarch head the government until elections. Preconditions for a change remain to be settled.

King Birendra has agreed to let an opposition alliance head an interim government, a leader of the 7-week-old pro-democracy movement reported Friday.

A separate opposition statement said it was willing to allow the king to head the government, but it would step in if he chose not to. The king, who has generally stayed above the daily management of the government, was believed unlikely to assume its leadership.

The political uncertainty stems from Birendra’s proclamation five days ago, after popular demonstrations, that he would lift the 29-year-old ban on political parties. Birendra then invited the Nepali Congress Party and United Left Front, which together led the pro-democracy movement and make up the opposition alliance, to join the interim government.

Friday, after a 65-minute meeting with the king at the Royal palace in Katmandu, Nepali Congress leader Ganesh Man Singh said the 44-year-old monarch was ready to allow the opposition to lead an interim government until elections can be held.

The meeting was the first between Birendra and the 75-year-old Singh since the pro-democracy movement burgeoned in February.

The government of this Himalayan kingdom first reacted to the pro-democracy campaign with a bloody crackdown. Witnesses said 200 people were killed when security forces fired on a crowd of 200,000 marching to the palace April 6. The government said 10 people were killed that day.

Singh was invited to the palace Friday after the Nepali Congress Party and the seven-party United Left Front set nine conditions for joining the interim government.

The conditions included an assurance that the new government would not be headed by a member of the nonpartisan National Assembly, which is dominated by loyalist legislators.

Calling the king the “lesser of the two evils,” the Nepali Congress Party said it is willing to allow the king to head the council of ministers until general elections can be held.

A statement issued by the Nepali Congress after the palace meeting said Birendra agreed that in case he was “not prepared to head the government, permission (would) be granted to the multi-party leaders (to form the interim government).”

Singh said the king has also agreed to discuss the other eight conditions, which include dismissal of the present government, dissolution of the National Assembly and reforms in the constitution. The constitution gives the king absolute legislative, executive and judicial powers.

“Unless these preconditions are met, we will not form the government,” Nepali Congress President K. P. Bhattarai told reporters. He said the king reacted positively to the demands. He did not elaborate.

Singh said that “by next week we will sort it out.”

“By the end of next week, a new government will be formed,” he added.

Political observers have said that the king is unlikely to accept the government’s leadership.

No royal spokesman was available for comment.

While Singh was meeting with Birendra, Foreign Minister Pashupati Shamsher Rana indicated that his government would not accept an opposition member as head of the interim administration.

“Our position is that the interim government has been constituted,” Rana told reporters, referring to the present government of Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand appointed after his predecessor resigned April 5.