In its manifesto for the CA election in 2008, the UCPN (Maoist) had proposed a presidential system of governance with an executive president being elected directly by the public. Throughout the four-year tenure of the now dissolved CA, the former rebel party lobbied firmly in favor of a system of governance in which the president is all-powerful.[break]
“We haven´t made any changes in our position on system of governance. We will stand firmly in favor of a directly-elected executive presidency, just as we had proposed in the last CA poll,” UCPN (Maoist) Spokesperson Agni Prasad Sapkota told Republica.
One of the two major disputes leading to the dissolution of the last CA without producing a new constitution was over system of governance. Another thorny issue was the federal model. The major political parties kept on wrangling over these two contentious issues -- model of federalism and system of governance -- right until the CA´s last deadline expired on May 27, 2012.
The Nepali Congress (NC), in the last CA, advocated a Westminster-style parliamentary system with an executive prime minister as head of government and a ceremonial president as head of state. In the NC-proposed model, both the president and prime minister will be elected by parliament.
NC leader Minendra Rijal said his party would stick to the same model of governance that it proposed in the last CA election.
“We stand for the parliamentary system with an executive prime minister and ceremonial president because only this system can properly reflect the diversity of our country at the highest levels of governance,” said Rijal. “Secondly, we stand for this system because it makes both the president and prime minister accountable to the people´s representative body - parliament.”
He said the head of government could not go against the people´s representatives because the prime minister needed to face the House over each crucial policy decision. He argued that even the head of state would be accountable to parliament as the House could impeach him or her. “The parliamentary system with an executive prime minister and a ceremonial president is the best also in terms of striking a proper balance of power,” he explained.
Another major political party, CPN-UML, last time proposed a model of governance with an executive prime minister elected directly by the public and a ceremonial president to be elected from parliament.
The party is to propose the same model in its manifesto this time as well. “We are for the same model of governance,” said UML Politburo member Bishnu Rimal.
UML leaders argued that a political system led by a directly-elected prime minister is needed to ensure stability as that alone would create the ground for economic prosperity.
However, when the last CA´s thematic committee on system of governance had to conduct a vote, UML members had stood in favor of the NC-proposed parliamentary system.
Failing to agree on system of governance, party leaders again tried to find yet another mixed model of power-sharing between prime minister and president. Leaders from the major political parties came near consensus over the mixed model.
But this model was not finalized as the CA was dissolved, with the big parties still sharply divided over model of federalism.
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