During a meeting with President Dr Ram Baran Yadav on Thursday afternoon, top leaders of the NC, UML, the ruling Maoists and the United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF) assured the head of state that they would reach consensus by Friday evening after UML endorses its standing committee decision to accept the leadership of the chief justice, through its central committee meeting scheduled for Friday morning. [break]
"A new government will be formed if our central committee meeting tomorrow [Friday] endorses the decision of the standing committee today [Thursday]," UML Chairman Jhala Nath Khanal told media after a four-party meeting with the president at Shital Niwas, Thursday afternoon.
The meeting of top leaders of the four major parties with the president on Thursday had ended inconclusively after Khanal said he needed to formally endorse the standing committee decision through the party´s central committee. The top leaders of all four parties are scheduled to reach the president´s office at 2 pm on Friday for another meeting.
"We are hopeful that our meeting on Friday will yield a positive result for resolving the deadlock. We are optimistic about reaching a political decision to form a mechanism for replacing the current government. Talks among the political parties so far are headed in a positive direction," said Maoist Vice-chairman Narayan Kaji Shrestha, who is also deputy prime minister and foreign minister.
Leaders involved in the inter-party negotiations said they are yet to finalize the modality of a new government under the chief justice. Discussions are underway whether to call the new head of government Chairman of Council of Minister or Chairman of the State Governing Council.
Also, the parties are still at odds whether to have any representation from political parties in the proposed mechanism for holding fresh polls. "While some leaders have maintained that there should not be any representation from political parties, others have suggested such a decision would be risky as a mechanism exclusively of independent persons may not be able to deliver elections," a top leader told Republica.
The parties also have differing positions on whether or not to ask the chief justice to resign from his post before he heads such a political mechanism.
NC Vice-president Ram Chandra Paudel told media persons after the meeting that they proposed holding discussions on other alternative candidates also besides the chief justice, for holding polls as per the mandate given by the party´s central working committee (CWC) meeting. "But the Maoist chairman declined to discuss other alternatives, saying time is running out to ensure polls by May-end," he said.
A CWC meeting of the NC held on Wednesday had kept open all options, including independent persons, former chief justices and political party leaders, for the new prime ministerial candidate.
Party leaders have decided to hold a meeting with President Yadav on Friday along with a ´technical team´ comprising lawyers from their respective parties to identity where they need to amend the Interim Constitution to facilitate new polls by May-end. The parties are then scheduled to ask the president to remove the constitutional difficulties in his capacity as head of state as there is no parliament to bring any amendment to the constitution into effect.
Prez to endorse ordinance on Organized Crime
President Dr Yadav has agreed to endorse an ordinance on Organized Crime as Nepal risks being blacklisted for not meeting conditions set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global anti-money laundering body.
According to Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Shrestha, the issue of defering ordinances including the Organized Crime and Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRC) and Disappearance Commission also surfaced during the four-party meeting with President Dr Yadav. "The president is likely to endorse the ordinance on organized crime Friday," he said.
Though Nepal has already endorsed two out of the three bills-- Extradition Bill and Mutual Cooperation Bill, another bill -- Bill to Control Organized Crime -- failed to get parliament´s endorsement due to strong opposition from the Mohan Baidya faction of the then UCPN (Maoist). Officials said Nepal risks being placed in the dark grey area if it fails to endorse the ordinance some time soon as Nepal has already been put in the grey area for its failure to do so.
Likewise, the government has agreed to forward a ´revised´ ordinace on TRC in view of concerns raised by the international community over its provision to grant ´general amnesty´ even to those involved in serious cases of human rights violation during the decade-long Maoist conflict.
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