Big 3 vow new constitution, leaving change options open

Addressing the Constituent Assembly (CA) meeting on Sunday, Prime Minister Koirala, who is also president of the Nepali Congress, CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli and UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal hailed the agreement among the major political parties to promulgate the statute as a historic achievement that had been overdue for decades.

The three leaders made repeated calls for the agitating political parties to sit for talks and seek solutions for their grievances through dialogue and to participate in the historic opportunity of promulgating a constitution through the CA.

Related story

Change of Guard and OBOR

"I urge the agitating political parties to return to dialogue and to participate in this process," the prime minister said at the CA meeting.

The prime minister said they are holding regular talks formally as well as informally with the disgruntled Madhesi leaders but they had not succeeded in reaching any agreement.

"We can make changes in this constitution at any time. We can look into certain provisions afresh even after the promulgation of the new constitution," said the prime minister.

He said he has clearly informed the international community that "we are promulgating a new constitution and you all have to support us."

He urged all the disgruntled sides to appreciate the reality that the CA is producing the new constitution as a document of compromise among several political forces coming from various ideological and other backgrounds.

UML Chairman Oli said that the political leadership has no option left other than to produce a new constitution to end a years-long deadlock and take the country ahead. "Let's promulgate the constitution and keep on debating the issues. We can make changes even after the commencement of the new constitution," said Oli.

UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Dahal described the CA's progress to the final stage of endorsing a new constitution as a historic achievement of the Nepali people and said that the reactions seen in various parts of the country were natural given the gravity of the change that the new constitution will bring.

"With the promulgation of the new constitution, we will enter into a new era," said Dahal. "So our country is going through prolonged and difficult labor pains."

He said that with a view to ending a long drawn-out deadlock, the UCPN(Maoist) had stood in favor of promulgating a new constitution through political agreement with the other two major political parties - NC and UML - despite various reservations on the part of his party.

"We realized that it was urgent to end the deadlock and take the country ahead as some elements have been hatching a conspiracy to foil the ongoing constitution-making process and push the country into serious crisis," said Dahal. "We have to recognize the genuine grievances of various communities while also identifying the elements working to render our country a failure."

NC's Krishna Prasad Sitaula, who also heads the CA's constitution drafting committee, claimed that there was no substance to the accusation that the constitution was depriving various sections of society of their rights.

"We have adopted a proportional representation system without making any changes in the related provision of the existing Interim Constitution. We can also declare some areas of the country such as Karnali as special development zones," said Sitaula.

He denounced the ongoing violent activities in various parts of the country and declared that the CA wouldn't take any decision under the shadow of violence.

Sitaula rubbished reports that President Ram Baran Yadav was for deferring the CA process in order to put in more efforts for bringing the disgruntled political parties on board.

"No one is above this CA. Our president was also elected from this very institution. And he is the one who is going to introduce the new constitution," said Sitaula. "So, I can't believe reports that the president is for further delaying this process."

Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal (RPP-N) Chairman Kamal Thapa and Nepal Workers Peasants Party (NWPP) Chairman Narayanman Bijukchhe, who also addressed the meeting, underscored the need of producing a new constitution in time.

Though RPP-N lawmakers had earlier announced a boycott of the remaining CA process, they later returned after talks with the three major political parties.