Agreement reached on 8 provinces

Mixed electoral model with 60% FPTP and 40% PR seats

KATHMANDU, June 9: Major political forces have signed a 16-point deal on settling key disputes that delayed the task of constitution making for years.

Chiefs of Nepali Congress (NC), CPN-UML, UCPN (Maoist) and Madhesi People's Rights Forum-Democratic (MPRF-D) have agreed to adopt an eight-province federal model, parliamentary system, mixed electoral model and include a constitutional court for 10 years in the new statute as a compromise deal for producing new constitution within the next few months.

The four major political forces that command around 490 seats in the 601-member Constituent Assembly (CA) also secure support from some other small political parties including the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), CPN (ML).

Although the parties have decided to federate the country into eight provinces, the to-be-adopted federal map doesn't give any picture as to how the provinces will be delineated because the parties have decided to entrust a federal commission with the task of delineating the provinces.

The parties have announced that a two-thirds majority of the concerned provincial assembly shall name its province.

"The government of Nepal shall constitute a federal commission and entrust it with the task of delineating the provinces," stated the 16-point agreement. "After receiving the report of the commission, the two-thirds majority of the legislature-parliament shall take final decision on delineation." The commission will be given six-month tenure.

There shall be a bicameral parliament at the central level with 275-member Lower House and a 45-member Upper House. Of the total 275 members of the Lower House, 165 will be elected under the first-past-the-post (FPTP) seats and other 110 members will be elected under the proportional representation (PR) system.

In the National Assembly, 40 will be elected from all the provinces while five will be nominated by the federal cabinet.

On the system of governance, they have adopted parliamentary system with a ceremonial president as the head of state and an executive prime minister as the head of government. A leader securing majority in the Lower House shall be elected as executive prime minister while a leader shall be elected as president from an electoral college comprising federal parliament and provincial assemblies.

They have agreed to include a constitutional court for 10 years starting the commencement of the new constitution with a mandate to settle the disputes between federation and provinces, one province and another province and between a province and local bodies. "The verdict of the constitutional court shall be the final on such issues," read the agreement.

They have said the constitution making process shall be done based on the spirit of this agreement.

The parties have also agreed to hold elections to local bodies as soon as possible.

The 16-point agreement is silent about forming a national unity government. However, leaders while emerging from the meeting said such a government will be formed after promulgation of new constitution. NC General Secretary Krishna Sitaula said they have reached an understanding to produce new constitution and subsequently form new government in a couple of months.

These four key contentious issues were the major reasons behind extension of the first CA's original two-year tenure to four years. And, the CA was dissolved without producing new constitution just because the parties couldn't settle these disputes.

After the election of the new CA, work at the present legislature has been stalled for some months just due to differences over the same issues.

What motivated the parties for action?

Several leaders privy to the development said that all the major political forces were under tremendous pressure to expedite the stalled statute drafting process.

The major opposition party UCPN (Maoist), which led an alliance of 30 opposition parties was feeling more pressure mainly after the protest launched by the alliance couldn't generate any pressure on the government so much so that they had to withdraw the general strike fearing retaliation from the general public. So opposition leaders from the UCPN (Maoist) and MPRF-D in particular were exploring some middle-way solution to end the protracted deadlock.

Ruling NC and UML on the other hand were stuck in a point from where they could neither move ahead sidelining the opposition alliance nor come up with a proposal agreeable to the opposition alliance.

"As the talks resumed in the changed context, leaders from both the sides were ready to negotiate in a flexible and liberal approach on various issues and that yielded the result," CPN-UML Secretary Pradeep Gyawali told Republica: