“We joined all the three governments formed since the Constituent Assembly (CA) election in 2008 and a negative sentiment has spread in the public against our party. Therefore, the party should play a constructive role for peace and constitution making by staying outside the next coalition if it garners only a simple majority,” said the decision taken by the 13-member department headed by party secretary Shankar Pokharel on Thursday.[break]
The suggestions will be discussed at the party´s all-powerful central committee.
The board took the decision to this effect after concluding that the consecutive two governments led by UML leaders Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhalanath Khanal had failed to accomplish the tasks of concluding the peace process and constitution writing.
It has also suggested to the party leadership to work for the formation of governments to be headed by major political parties on a rotational basis. “The UCPN (Maoist) and the Nepali Congress (NC) should be allowed to head the first and second government,” read the 10-point recommendation.
It has said the first government should last until the new constitution is promulgated, the second coalition should undertake the responsibility of formulating laws and other structures based on the new constitution and the third government should last till the newly-elected government is formed.
On Maoist leadership
The parliamentary body has suggested to the leadership to make public the party´s position on formation of a national unity government in Maoist leadership if the parties reach a concrete agreement on advancing the fundamental tasks of the peace process and start the tasks of integration of Maoist combatants into the security agencies and rehabilitation work with a time bound program.
Change leadership in Constitutional Committee
The department has urged the party leadership to take initiatives for making the constitutional committee of the CA effective. “It is appropriate for a leader from a major political party to shoulder the responsibility of the constitutional committee,” read the recommendation. At present, Nilambar Acharya of the NC is the chairman of the committee, which is mandated to settle the disputed issues and prepare the integrated draft of the new constitution.
Pradip Gyawali, Agni Kharel, Ramnath Dhakal, Bhim Acharya, Thammaya Thapa, Prithivi Subba Gurung, Bishnu Rimal, Chhavilal Bishwakarma, Ramchandra Jha, Binda Pande and Lalbabu Pundit are members of the department.
Meanwhile the UML´s standing committee meeting held later in the evening decided to take initiatives for the formation of consensus government and to give top priority to the peace process.
Asked if the standing committee decided to not join the majority government as suggested by the party´s parliament department earlier in the day, party secretary Pokharel said, “The standing committee hasn´t taken any such a decision so far.”
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