Fourteen months have elapsed since the CA election last year and only eight months remain for the promulgation of the new constitution, but very little progress has been made so far in that regard.
“The deadline for the promulgation of the new constitution is nearing, but the political parties are still busy with the power equation, sidelining the historic task of constitution writing” said a CA secretariat official, requesting anonymity.
The CA committee on state restructuring is yet to begin work on the names, number and delineation of the provinces in the new, federal Nepal. The deadline given to the political parties to present their federal models at the state restructuring committee has expired twice, but only the UCPN (Maoist) has so far come up with such a model.
Last week, the Maoists presented their federal model to the CA committee, proposing 10 autonomous provinces based on ethnicity and three based on region, and they have drawn widespread flak for basing the provinces mostly on ethnicity.
According to committee chairman Lokendra Bista, the committee had set the deadline of July 30 and later extended it to Sept. 3, but the political parties failed to come up with their models. “The committee has received only lackadaisical responses from the political parties,” he says. Without the official views of the political parties, discussions at the committee have just rambled back and forth.
The Nepali Congress had formed a state restructuring committee headed by party leader Gopal Man Shrestha and he presented a federal model to the party last month. After feedback from the central committee, Shrestha was supposed to revise the model and present it at the Central Committee a week later for endorsement, but he is yet to complete that task. “Gopalmanji is yet to finish the task though the deadline given to him has already expired,” said NC leader Narahari Acharya.
Similar is the situation with the CPN-UML that had entrusted party leader Ram Chandra Jha with preparing its federal model, but he also is yet to accomplish his task.
Besides the number, names, and delineation of the provinces, the CA committee is yet to resolve a host of issues on state restructuring, such as right to self determination, special privileges for ethnic groups and residual powers. Some CA members have even defined the right to self-determination as a right to secession.
The only task accomplished by the CA committee so far is to agree on a three-tier federal structure - central, provincial and local- and on specially protected localities for ethnic groups and backward regions, besides debating general constitutional principles.
“As most CA members lack any ideas about federalism and constitution making, the CA should have begun its work with experts at its side,” says another CA official. The government had formed a State Restructuring Commission led by Dr Ganeshman Gurung in April to facilitate the task of state restructuring, but the government did not bother to complete the panel. “I learnt through television news that I had been appointed the commission chief, but the government did not contact me to take up the task,” said Dr Gurung. In its policy and program, the government had stated that it would form such a committee, but that commitment is yet to materialize.
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