KATHMANDU, June 2: The past one week, leaders from major political parties were mostly busy in marathon talks. Intra-party talks, bilateral, trilateral and multilateral talks among the political parties went on and on.
But the major political parties in the alliance -- Nepali Congress (NC), Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), Madhesi People´s Rights Forum and Tarai Madhes Democratic Party -- have failed to resolve their own intra-party issues like choosing names to propose as ministers, apart from inter-party issues including the number of ministries to allocate to a particular party. [break]
Yet the party leaders, who have failed to resolve issues in their own parties, have asked other smaller parties to claim ministerial posts in a group.
Satisfying every small party seems to be a Herculean task for Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, who garnered a majority in parliament with support from 22 political parties while claiming the top executive post.
Keshav Mainali, CA member and leader of Chure Bhawar Rastriya Ekta Party Nepal (CBREPN), who is the only CA member of the party, terms the condition put forth by the major parties as itself problematic. "It is almost impossible to bring together 10 CA members from different political parties to propose a leader, that too from another political party, as minister," he said, adding, "Obviously leaders want to be ministers. Why should a party leader proposes a leader from another party as minister?"
Asked if he was claiming a ministerial post, he said, "Though it´s tough, I will still give it a try if I can garner support."
Nepal Loktantrik Samajbadi Dal, Samajbadi Prajatantrik Janta Party, Rastriya Janamukti Party (RJP) and CBREPN formed an alliance for the purpose. These parties, except RJP, have one CA member each.
When Malbar Singh Thapa of RJP claimed a ministerial post on the ground that his party has two seats in the CA, other political parties tried to include more CA members from other parties to challenge his claim, said a CA member from the alliance. But Thapa claimed that he has not joined any group for the purpose as the prime minister´s party has not formally asked him into the government. "The UML had formally asked us for support in their scramble to show a majority in favor of Madhav Nepal´s candidacy. In a similar way, they have as well to first formally request us to join the cabinet," he said.
Dr Laxmi Lal Chaudhary of Nepal Loktantrik Samajbadi Dal said that they have proposed the names of Prem Bahadur Singh, Chaudhary himself and Mainali. Singh´s name is top priority, according to him.
Biswendra Paswan of Dalit Janjati Party, which has one member in the CA, claimed that he is also in the race. "We have an alliance, the Federal Front of CA Members. We will meet on Tuesday morning and finalize the candidacy," he said. According to him, they have already gathered seven members including independent member Sadrul Miya Haque in their alliance.
Some leaders of other small parties claimed that they were not interested in the race.
Dipak Raj Ghimire, a central member of Nepal Family Party, said the party has decided not to join any group for the purpose. "We decided not to join any group to propose a leader from any other political party. We will think about it if the prime minister´s party pointedly requests our party to join the cabinet," Ghimire said.
There are seven political parties which have only one CA member each while six other six parties are represented by two members each.
Among them, CPN (Unified) and Nepal Janta Dal are in the opposition. The other four political parties -- Nepal Workers Peasants Party, Rastriya Janamorcha, CPN (United) and Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal have announced support for the government from outside.
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