Nepal's king is expected to miss his annual blessing from a virgin "goddess," breaking a tradition seen as crucial for the Himalayan monarchy's survival, officials said Monday.
Palace and police officials said King Gyanendra looked set to stay at home for Tuesday's Royal Kumari festival, which according to a 250-year-old tradition he needs to attend in order to remain Nepal's undisputed leader. Veteran Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, the architect of a peace deal with Maoist insurgents that has put the country on the road to becoming a republic, was set to attend the ceremony in place of the embattled king.
"Most probably the king won't go," said a senior royal palace official, who asked not to be named. Kathmandu police chief Sarbendra Khanal confirmed security preparations had only been made for the prime minister - who wants the king to abdicate and has already taken his place at three important religious festivals this year.
"The arrangements made are for a visit by the prime minister. We have not heard any word from the king," said Khanal, who liaises with King Gyanendra's royal bodyguards whenever he moves outside the palace.
"We've not received any letter from the palace about the king visiting the festival," Home Ministry spokesman Baman Prasad Neupane also told AFP. "The prime minister will attend and arrangements have been made accordingly."
The Kumari is a pre-pubescent girl selected from a Buddhist community in Kathmandu valley and taken from her family to live in an ornate palace in the centre of the capital's ancient quarter.
She is worshipped as the living incarnation of a Hindu goddess, and her annual blessing is considered a spiritual seal of approval for the palace in the conservative Hindu-majority nation. "The person who has the power is the one who receives the Royal Kumari's blessings," explained Chunda Bajracharya, a professor of cultural studies at Kathmandu's Tribhuvan University.
"At the moment all the power belongs to the prime minister," she said, when asked to explain the significance of the king's expected absence. A no-show at one of the country's biggest festivals would be yet another blow to the two-century-old Shah dynasty - a family that has been beset by a string of recent catastrophes.
Gyanendra was crowned in 2001 after king Birendra and most of his family were massacred, according to the official version, by a drunken, drugged and lovelorn crown prince Dipendra, who in turn shot himself.
The new king's popularity plummetted after he seized total power to battle the Maoists, a move that prompted bloody street protests and a rise in republican sentiment.
Since being pushed aside by the Maoists and mainstream parties by last November's peace accord, the rotund, dour-faced monarch has been stripped of his positions as head of state and chief of the armed forces. He has also been removed from new banknotes and coins, ordered to pay tax and has had several of his prime palaces seized by the state.
His only recent public outing was to the hospital to see his equally unpopular son and heir Crown Prince Paras, who had suffered a cardiac arrest blamed on his playboy lifestyle.
The final status of the monarchy is to be decided after elections in November for a body that will rewrite Nepal's constitution. The Maoists, however, quit the government last week and are pushing for the immediate abolition of what they term a "feudal" and "regressive" institution in one of the world's poorest countries.