A meeting of UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Nepali Congress (NC) Vice-president Ram Chandra Paudel and senior CPN-UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal held in the presence of CA Chairman Subas Nembang and CA Constitutional Committee (CC) Chairman Nilambar Acharya directed the CA secretariat to come up with a proposal to this effect at the CC meeting on Sunday.[break]
Former prime minister Nepal said they came to the conclusion that they can´t resolve the remaining issues by Sunday. "Therefore, we realized the need to extend the deadline given for the CC to settle the disputes. The secretariat will come up with a timeline and tomorrow´s CC meeting will endorse it," former prime minister Nepal told reporters after the meeting.
Asked how many more days they decided to give the CC, Nepal did not elaborate. "We are for extending the timeline, keeping in mind that the final May 28 deadline of the CA should not be breached yet again," he quipped. He said they are for tackling the tasks of dispute resolution and state restructuring simultaneously.
Sources privy to developments said the leaders are likely to give 15 days more to the CC. "All three leaders are one on giving 15 days more to the CC for the purpose," the source told Republica. The CA secretariat must deduct from the duration allowed for some other programs under the CA calendar to give the CC more time for dispute resolution. Officials at the secretariat said it was not yet clear which programs they will deduct from.
As per the 12th amendment of the CA calendar, the CC was supposed to resolve all the remaining disputes by January 4 but the timeline was later extended to January 29 after leaders at the CC sought more time. But the last three weeks were wasted as not a single thorny issue was resolved.
At the meeting, Nepal and Dahal urged Maoist Chairman Dahal to work seriously to expedite the stalled peace process and constitution writing, and Dahal assured them that the peace process will gather momentum in the days to come and there will be no hindrance from the Maoist party. "The task of biding adieu to [Maoist] combatants opting for voluntary retirement will go ahead as planned by the government," a leader quoted Dahal as saying at the meeting. "As far as the task of integration is concerned, there are some minor complications and you [Nepal and Paudel] need to support me to settle them and things will move ahead."
The leader was of the view that there will be some progress in the peace process if Dahal´s assurances are anything to go by.
Rounds of meetings among leaders from the political parties represented in the CA were held before the three-party meeting decided to amend the CA calendar.
A meeting of the same three leaders -- Dahal, Nepal and Paudel -- flanked by Nembang, Acharya, the chief whips of the three big parties and two leaders of Madhes-based parties-- Ramjanam Chaudhary of Madhesi People´s Rights Forum-Democratic (MPRF-D) and Laxman Lal Karna of Sadbhavana Party -- was held earlier in the morning at Singha Durbar.
Also, a meeting of leaders from all 33 political parties represented in the CA was held in the afternoon at Singha Durbar. At the meeting, leaders from the Madhesi and small parties held the leaders from the three major parties responsible for delay in constitution writing.
Had they not agreed to amend the timeline, the CC would have had to prepare a list of unresolved disputes and forward it to the 601-seat CA for a vote. But the leaders chose to avert this for the time being as none of the parties commands a majority in the CA.
As per the calendar endorsed by the CA in December, the CC was scheduled to settle all the remaining disputes by January 4, but failed to do so.
Later, the CC was given a new deadline of January 29 to resolve disputes such as that over the system of governance.
Earlier, after failing to accomplish the given tasks within the set deadline, the CA effected the 11th amendment to its calendar of events in July, 2010. But the CA had blissfully forgotten about the calendar and failed to even update it since November 2010. Last year, the CA gave continuity to its work for months without any calendar.
It was only in the first week of December, 2011 that the CA came up with its six-month timeline for statute drafting, but only to miss the deadline yet again.
Related story
New ‘Big Bang Theory’ Series in the Works at Max
