The taskforce headed by Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal was supposed to resolve or narrow down by Sunday a list of 220 disputes in eight of the 11 preliminary reports prepared by Constituent Assembly (CA) thematic committees.[break]
So far, members of the panel have delved into three reports, prepared by the CA committee on determining the system of governance, the committee on determining the form of legislative bodies and the committee on judicial system. On Saturday, they started discussions on the report prepared by the committee on fundamental rights and directive principles.
Apart from making a little progress in ironing out some minor disputes, the leaders have failed to resolve any of the key issues. Whether to adopt an executive presidential or prime ministerial system, a unicameral or bicameral parliament, a parliament-controlled or independent judiciary and the electoral system to be enshrined in the new statute, are some of the thorniest issues yet to be resolved.
Some have termed the ongoing talks among the leaders representing political parties in the CA as meaningless on the ground that the initiative has yielded no significant result.
Chairman of Madhesi People´s Rights Froum (MPRF) Upendra Yadav, who is also a member of the taskforce, said the panel has failed to resolve the issues as the political parties did not budge from their previous stances.
"The taskforce has not made any progress because we haven´t been able to resolve any of the key issues so far," said Yadav, who represents four Madhes-based parties in the taskforce.
However, other leaders from within and outside the taskforce are optimistic over the senior leaders´ regular and close engagement with the statute-drafting process.
One regular participant in the talks, Sunil Prajapati of Nepal Workers Peasants´ Party (NWPP), finds the ongoing discussions quite fruitful in terms of furthering the statute-drafting process.
"This is the first time that leaders have closely engaged themselves in open, intense and thoroughly debate on the contentious issues," Prajapati told Republica.
According to leaders involved, this has greatly helped the top leaders understand the gravity of the issues and the concerns of other parties.
Though the taskforce has failed to make any headway in sorting out differences on major issues the top leaders of the major parties for the first time took part in the deliberations and have become familiar with the issues. This will greatly help the future negotiations on constitution writing.
They said one cannot expect immediate decisions on the crucial issues. "The leaders´ present stance is as per the decisions taken by their respective parties. They can´t change the official stance without consent from the authoritative bodies of the parties," Prajapati said.
He said once the leaders return to their party meetings with clarity about the principles and provisions to be enshrined in the new statute they can make clear decisions within the parties.
UML Chairman Jhalanath Khanal, Nepali Congress parliamentary party leader Ram Chandra Poudel, Yadav of MPRF, Narayanmaj Bijukchhe of NWPP and two other lawmakers, Prem Bahadur Singh and Rukmini Chaudhary, are members of the high-level taskforce.
Dev Gurung of UCPN (Maoist), Ramesh Lekhak of NC, Bharat Mohan Adhikari of UML and Prajapati of NWPP have been entrusted with assisting the top leaders in sorting out the issues.
This time the leaders are informed relatively better than earlier due to the role of their ´assistants´.
"This time they are more updated and better informed as they have engaged themselves in the discussions on major issues and also because we regularly briefed them on each of the issues," Lekhak said.
There are two types of views among the members in connection with taking the task ahead. NC leaders in particular were for finalizing the major issues first and then sorting out other disputes as a matter of course. But Maoist leaders said such an approach would get them nowhere if they start disputing on the major contentious issues.
Gurung believes they can reduce the list of 220 disputes to at least 150 even if they can´t settle the major issues.
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