The leaders took the decision as subcommittee members from the Nepali Congress (NC) insisted on further discussions over the proposal prepared and submitted by the Laxman Lal Karna-headed taskforce.[break]
The five-member team formed under the subcommittee has suggested to the subcommittee that a mixed model - with directly-elected president and parliament-elect prime minister - would be a middle way solution.
While UCPN (Maoist), CPN-UML and Madhes-based political parties appear flexible toward the mixed model, the second-largest party, NC, has not accepted it.
“The NC still firmly believes that the executive head should be elected from the House of Representatives. He/she should be accountable to parliament,” NC parliamentary party leader Ram Chandra Paudel told media persons after the subcommittee meeting. “You may call it a parliamentary system or give it any other name.” He clarified that the NC is not in favor of a popularly-elected executive head. He informed that leaders decided to finalize the issue only after holding further discussions at the top political level.
Paudel refuted reports that the leaders have reached an understanding on key issues. He elaborated a list of contentious issues yet to be resolved.
“We are yet to determine the federal system of governance, some issues related to the electoral model, issues relating to citizenship and non-amendable provisions, among others,” he said.
According to him, the issue of defining “other castes” has been raised strongly at the Constitutional Committee (CC). “There is a serious objection from a large section of the society against the trend of identifying some ethnic groups and putting rest of other groups in a single basket of “the others”," he said.
Similarly, the committee is yet to take decisions on some of the issues related to the judicial system and distribution of natural resources.
According to the participants at the meeting, the leaders decided to hold discussions at the top political level as NC leaders said that they can´t take the decision on the system of governance without consent from party president Sushil Koirala.
Earlier, NC Deputy Parliamentary Party leader Prakash Man Singh, who heads the NC team in the subcommittee, had requested subcommittee members to not take any crucial decision in the absence of Paudel.
The Constitutional Committee meeting on Saturday had decided to give two more days to the subcommittee to settle the issues even as the subcommittee´s deadline expired on Friday.
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