He ruled out any possibility of his stepping down under Maoist pressure from the streets. He rather reiterated that the government could be changed only through due constitutional and parliamentary processes as the incumbent government was formed by a parliamentary majority.[break]
"I urge the UCPN (Maoist) to immediately call off the general strike and move toward forging national consensus and cooperation," the prime minister said in his televised address at 6 p.m.
He, however, made it clear that he was ready to abide by any agreement reached among the political parties. "Let´s take the peace process ahead, present a reliable plan to ensure promulgation of the new constitution, and come up with a roadmap to guide the parties ahead through consensus; I am ready to accept that and cooperate with the parties," Nepal said. He urged the Maoists to avoid confrontation as that would lead the country toward confusion, instability and eventually to a totalitarian system. "No one should quit the government amidst such confusion," he said.
The prime minister argued that he wouldn´t step down bowing to street protests, as that would establish a bad precedent. He maintained that once the government is toppled through street protests, the mass will again resort to the same ´weapon´ to press for writing constitution of its choice and for fulfilling various demands. "If we set a bad precedent under the sway of emotion, it will impact adversely on the future of democracy. Who can deny this?" he said.
He urged one and all including those in the state organs and security agencies as well as employees and service providers to uphold law and order, security, democratic system and the constitutional as well as legal systems.
Nepal urged the parties to engage in self-criticism for failing to produce constitution on time and to become committed to writing constitution from the Constituent Assembly. "We should follow the constitutional process to write the constitution, openly reviewing past mistakes and presenting a reliable basis for not repeating the mistakes," he said.
He claimed that the intention of the Maoists is questionable as the party threatened to hinder constitution-writing process, capture power and announce new constitution from the streets. "If the largest party itself resorts to such tactics, one can easily guess who is acting as a stumbling block in the process," he said.
He didn´t miss the opportunity to assert that his government did facilitate constitution-writing and took the peace process ahead despite various hindrances created by Maoists from the initial days of the government. "I never imagined that the opposition would be uncooperative to such an extent over taking the peace process ahead," he said.
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