Nepal's political leaders held emergency talks on Monday with former rebel Maoists to try to persuade the ultra-leftists not to storm out of the government and launch nation-wide protests.
The Maoists are demanding the immediate abolition of the monarchy, and a pull-out from the cabinet and a return to street protests would deal a major blow to last year's landmark peace deal that ended a decade of civil war.
Maoist leader Prachanda was "scheduled to meet the prime minister Monday afternoon, and other leaders have been meeting leaders from the other parties," Maoist deputy commander Ananta told AFP. He said the ex-rebels were still standing by their demand for Nepal's deeply unpopular King Gyanendra to be shown the door immediately - and not at a later date and by democratic vote as specified by the 10-month-old peace accord.
"We will have a mass public meeting Tuesday and Chairman Prachanda... will announce that we will leave government and begin our protest programmes if our demands are not met," Ananta said.
A member of the central committee of Nepal's largest party, the Nepali Congress, said talks had been going on all day and that a meeting between the seven mainstream parties in government and the Maoists was "highly likely" Monday night. "Democracy is not just a system, it's also a process. We agreed on a process and now they are backing out. This means they don't have any trust in the democratic process," the official, Arjun Narsingh KC, said.